STROPHE.

The curlew screamed, the tritons blew
Their shells to celebrate the ravished rite;
Old Time exulted as he flew;

And Independence saw the light.

The light he saw in Albion's happy plains,
Where under cover of a flowering thorn,
While Philomel renewed her warbled strains,
The auspicious fruit of stolen embrace was born-
The mountain Dryads seized with joy,

The smiling infant to their charge consigned;
The Doric muse caressed the favourite boy;
The hermit Wisdom stored his opening mind.
As rolling years matured his age,

He flourished bold and sinewy as his sire;
While the mild passions in his breast assuage
The fiercer flames of his maternal fire.

ANTISTROPHE.

Accomplished thus, he winged his way,
And zealous roved from pole to pole,
The rolls of right eternal to display,

And warm with patriot thought the aspiring soul.
On desert isles 'twas he that raised

Those spires that gild the Adriatic wave,
Where Tyranny beheld amazed

Fair Freedom's temple, where he marked her grave.
He steeled the blunt Batavian's arms

To burst the Iberian's double chain;
And cities reared, and planted farms,

Won from the skirts of Neptune's wide domain.
He, with the generous rustics, sat
On Uri's rocks in close divan;
And winged that arrow sure as fate,

Which ascertained the sacred rights of man.

STROPHE.

Arabia's scorching sands he crossed,
Where blasted nature pants supine,
Conductor of her tribes adust,
To Freedom's adamantine shrine;

And many a Tartar horde forlorn, aghast!

He snatched from under fell Oppression's wing,
And taught amidst the dreary waste,
The all-cheering hymns of liberty to sing.
He virtue finds, like precious ore,
Diffused through every baser mould;
Even now he stands on Calvi's rocky shore,
And turns the dross of Corsica to gold:
He, guardian genius, taught my youth
Pomp's tinsel livery to despise :
My lips by him chastised to truth,

Ne'er paid that homage which my heart denies.

ANTISTROPHE.

Those sculptured halls my feet shall never tread,
Where varnished vice and vanity combined,
To dazzle and seduce, their banners spread,
And forge vile shackles for the free-born mind.
While Insolence his wrinkled front uprears,
And all the flowers of spurious fancy blow;
And Title his ill-woven chaplet wears,

Full often wreathed around the miscreant's brow:
Where ever-dimpling falsehood, pert and vain,
Presents her cup of stale profession's froth;
And pale disease, with all his bloated train,
Torments the sons of gluttony and sloth.

STROPHE.

In Fortune's car behold that minion ride,
With either India's glittering spoils oppressed,
So moves the sumpter-mule in harnessed pride,
That bears the treasure which he cannot taste.

For him let venal bards disgrace the bay,
And hireling minstrels wake the tinkling string;
Her sensual snares let faithless pleasure lay,
And jingling bells fantastic folly ring:
Disquiet, doubt, and dread, shall intervene ;
And nature, still to all her feelings just,
In vengeance hang a damp on every scene,
Shook from the baleful pinions of disgust.

ANTISTROPHE,

Nature I'll court in her sequestered haunts,
By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove, or cell;
Where the poised lark his evening ditty chants,
And health, and peace, and contemplation dwell
There, study shall with solitude recline,
And friendship pledge me to his fellow-swains,
And toil and temperance sedately twine
The slender cord that fluttering life sustains:
And fearless poverty shall guard the door,
And taste unspoiled the frugal table spread,
And industry supply the humble store,
And sleep unbribed his dews refreshing shed;
White-mantled Innocence, ethereal sprite,
Shall chase far off the goblins of the night;
And Independence o'er the day preside,
Propitious power! my patron and my pride.

Ode to Leven Water.

On Leven's banks, while free to rove,
And tune the rural pipe to love,

I envied not the happiest swain
That ever trod the Arcadian plain.

Pure stream, in whose transparent wave
My youthful limbs I wont to lave;
No torrents stain thy limpid source,
No rocks impede thy dimpling course,
That sweetly warbles o'er its bed,
With white, round, polished pebbles spread;
While, lightly poised, the scaly brood
In myriads cleave thy crystal flood;
The springing trout in speckled pride;
The salmon, monarch of the tide ;
The ruthless pike, intent on war;
The silver eel, and mottled par.
Devolving from thy parent lake,
A charming maze thy waters make,
By bowers of birch, and groves of pine,
And edges flowered with eglantine.

Still on thy banks so gaily green, May numerous herds and flocks be seen: And lasses chanting o'er the pail, And shepherds piping in the dale; And ancient faith that knows no guile, And industry embrowned with toil; And hearts resolved, and hands prepared, The blessings they enjoy to guard!

The Tears of Scotland.

[Written on the barbarities committed in the Highlands by the English forces under the command of the Duke of Cumberland, after the battle of Culloden, 1746. It is said that Smollett originally finished the poem in six stanzas; when, some one representing that such a diatribe against government might injure his prospects, he sat down and added the still more pointed invective of the seventh stanza.]

Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn
Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn!
Thy sons, for valour long renowned,
Lie slaughtered on their native ground;
Thy hospitable roofs no more
Invite the stranger to the door;
In smoky ruins sunk they lie,
The monuments of cruelty.

The wretched owner sees afar
His all become the prey of war;
Bethinks him of his babes and wife,
Then smites his breast, and curses life.
Thy swains are famished on the rocks,
Where once they fed their wanton flocks;
Thy ravished virgins shriek in vain;
Thy infants perish on the plain.

What boots it, then, in every clime,

Through the wide-spreading waste of time,
Thy martial glory, crowned with praise,
Still shone with undiminished blaze?
Thy towering spirit now is broke,
Thy neck is bended to the yoke.
What foreign arms could never quell,
By civil rage and rancour fell.

The rural pipe and merry lay
No more shall cheer the happy day:
No social scenes of gay delight
Beguile the dreary winter night:
No strains but those of sorrow flow,
And nought be heard but sounds of woe,
While the pale phantoms of the slain
Glide nightly o'er the silent plain.

Oh! baneful cause, oh! fatal morn,
Accursed to ages yet unborn!
The sons against their father stood,
The parent shed his children's blood.
Yet, when the rage of battle ceased,
The victor's soul was not appeased:
The naked and forlorn must feel
Devouring flames and murdering steel!

The pious mother, doomed to death,
Forsaken wanders o'er the heath,
The bleak wind whistles round her head,
Her helpless orphans cry for bread;
Bereft of shelter, food, and friend,
She views the shades of night descend:
And stretched beneath the inclement skies,
Weeps o'er her tender babes, and dies.

While the warm blood bedews my veins,
And unimpaired remembrance reigns,
Resentment of my country's fate
Within my filial breast shall beat;
And, spite of her insulting foe,
My sympathising verse shall flow:
'Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn
Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn.'

JOHN ARMSTRONG.

JOHN ARMSTRONG, the friend of Thomson, of Mallet, Wilkes, and other public and literary characters of that period, is now only known as the author of a didactic poem, the Art of Preserving Health, which is but little read. Armstrong was son of the minister of Castleton, a pastoral parish in Roxburghshire. He studied medicine in Edinburgh, and took his degree of M.D. in 1732. He repaired to London, and became known by the publication of several fugitive pieces and medical essays. A very objectionable poem, the Economy of Love, gave promise of poetical powers, but marred his practice as a physician. In 1744 appeared his Art of Preserving Health, which was followed by two other poems, Benevolence and Taste, and a volume of prose essays, the latter indifferent enough. In 1760, he was appointed physician to the forces

success, till his death, September 7, 1779, in the seventieth year of his age. Armstrong seems to have been an indolent and splenetic, but kindhearted man-shrewd, caustic, and careful-he left £3000, saved out of a small income. His portrait in the Castle of Indolence is in Thomson's happiest

manner:

With him was sometimes joined in silent walk-
Profoundly silent, for they never spoke-
One shyer still, who quite detested talk;
Oft stung by spleen, at once away he broke
To groves of pine and broad o'ershadowing oak;
There, inly thrilled, he wandered all alone,
And on himself his pensive fury wroke,
Nor ever uttered word, save when first shone
The glittering star of eve-Thank Heaven, the day is
done!'

Warton has praised the Art of Preserving Health for its classical correctness and closeness of style, and its numberless poetical images. In general, however, it is stiff and laboured, with occasional passages of tumid extravagance; and the images are not unfrequently echoes of those of Thomson and other poets. The subject required the aid of ornament, for scientific rules are in general bad themes for poetry, and few men are ignorant of the true philosophy of life, however they may deviate from it in practice. That health is to be preserved by temperance, exercise, and cheerful recreation, is a truth familiar to all from infancy. Armstrong, however, was no ascetic philosopher. His motto is, "Take the good the gods provide you,' but take it in moderation.

When you smooth

The brows of care, indulge your festive vein
In cups by well-informed experience found
The least your bane, and only with your friends.

The effects of over-indulgence in wine he has finely described:

But most too passive, when the blood runs low,
Too weakly indolent to strive with pain,
And bravely by resisting conquer fate,
Try Circe's arts; and in the tempting bowl
Of poisoned nectar sweet oblivion swill.

Struck by the powerful charm, the gloom dissolves
In empty air; Elysium opens round,

A pleasing frenzy buoys the lightened soul,
And sanguine hopes dispel your fleeting care;
And what was difficult, and what was dire,
Yields to your prowess and superior stars:
The happiest you of all that e'er were mad,
Or are, or shall be, could this folly last.
But soon your heaven is gone: a heavier gloom
Shuts o'er your head; and, as the thundering stream,
Swollen o'er its banks with sudden mountain rain,
Sinks from its tumult to a silent brook,
So, when the frantic raptures in your breast
Subside, you languish into mortal man;
You sleep, and waking find yourself undone,
For, prodigal of life, in one rash night
You lavished more than might support three days.
A heavy morning comes; your cares return
With tenfold rage. An anxious stomach well
May be endured; so may the throbbing head;
But such a dim delirium, such a dream,
Involves you; such a dastardly despair
Unmans your soul, as maddening Pentheus felt,
When, baited round Citharon's cruel sides,
He saw two suns, and double Thebes ascend.

indulges in a vein of poetical luxury worthy the enchanted grounds of the Castle of Indolence:

Oh! when the growling winds contend, and all
The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm;
To sink in warm repose, and hear the din
Howl o'er the steady battlements, delights
Above the luxury of vulgar sleep.

The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarser strain
Of waters rushing o'er the slippery rocks,
Will nightly lull you to ambrosial rest.
To please the fancy is no trifling good,
Where health is studied; for whatever moves
The mind with calm delight, promotes the just
And natural movements of the harmonious frame.

All who have witnessed or felt the inspiriting effects of fine mountain scenery on invalids, will subscribe to the truth so happily expressed in the concluding lines of this passage. The blank verse of Armstrong somewhat resembles that of Cowper in compactness and vigour, but his imagination was hard and literal, and wanted the airy expansiveness and tenderness of pure inspiration. It was a high merit, however, to succeed where nearly all have failed, in blending with a subject so strictly practical and prosaic, the art and fancy of the poet. Much learning, skill, and knowledge are compressed into his poem in illustration of his medical and ethical doctrines. The whole is divided into four books or divisions-the first on air, the second on diet, the third on exercise, and the fourth on the passions. In his first book, Armstrong has penned a ludicrously pompous invective on the climate of Great Britain, 'steeped in continual rains, or with raw fogs bedewed.' He exclaims:

Our fathers talked

Of summers, balmy airs, and skies serene:
Good Heaven! for what unexpiated crimes
This dismal change! The brooding elements
Do they, your powerful ministers of wrath,
Prepare some fierce exterminating plague?
Or is it fixed in the decrees above,
That lofty Albion melt into the main?
Indulgent nature! Oh, dissolve this gloom;
Bind in eternal adamant the winds
That drown or wither; give the genial west
To breathe, and in its turn the sprightly south,
And may once more the circling seasons rule
The year, not mix in every monstrous day!

Now, the fact we believe is, that in this country there are more good days in the year than in any other country in Europe. (See the more correct opinion of Charles II. ante, p. 518.) A few extracts from the Art of Preserving Health are subjoined. The last, which is certainly the most energetic passage in the whole poem, describes the 'sweating sickness' which scourged England

Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent
Their ancient rage at Bosworth's purple field.

In the second, Armstrong introduces an apostrophe to his native stream, which perhaps suggested the more felicitous ode of Smollett to Leven Water. It is not unworthy of remark, that the poet barely glances at the 'Doric lays' of his native district, and overlooks the store of romantic association and heroic ballad-poetry pertaining to Liddesdale, which, in the next age, Scott brought so prominently before the notice of the world.

[Wrecks and Mutations of Time.]

What does not fade? The tower that long had stood The crush of thunder and the warring winds,

Shook by the slow but sure destroyer Time,
Now hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base,
And flinty pyramids and walls of brass
Descend. The Babylonian spires are sunk;
Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down.
Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones,
And tottering empires rush by their own weight.
This huge rotundity we tread grows old,
And all those worlds that roll around the sun;
The sun himself shall die, and ancient night
Again involve the desolate abyss,

Till the great Father, through the lifeless gloom,
Extend his arm to light another world,
And bid new planets roll by other laws.

[Recommendation of Angling.]

But if the breathless chase o'er hill and dale
Exceed your strength, a sport of less fatigue,
Not less delightful, the prolific stream
Affords. The crystal rivulet, that o'er
A stony channel rolls its rapid maze,
Swarms with the silver fry: such through the bounds
Of pastoral Stafford runs the brawling Trent;
Such Eden, sprung from Cumbrian mountains; such
The Esk, o'erhung with woods; and such the stream
On whose Arcadian banks I first drew air;
Liddel, till now, except in Doric lays,
Tuned to her murmurs by her love-sick swains,
Unknown in song, though not a purer stream
Through meads more flowery, or more romantic groves,
Rolls towards the western main. Hail, sacred flood!
May still thy hospitable swains be blest
In rural innocence, thy mountains still
Teem with the fleecy race, thy tuneful woods
For ever flourish, and thy vales look gay
With painted meadows and the golden grain;
Oft with thy blooming sons, when life was new,
Sportive and petulant, and charmed with toys,
In thy transparent eddies have I laved;
Oft traced with patient steps thy fairy banks,
With the well-imitated fly to hook

The eager trout, and with the slender line
And yielding rod solicit to the shore

The struggling panting prey, while vernal clouds
And tepid gales obscured the ruffled pool,

And from the deeps called forth the wanton swarms.
Formed on the Samian school, or those of Ind,
There are who think these pastimes scarce humane;
Yet in my mind (and not relentless I)
His life is pure that wears no fouler stains.

[Pestilence of the Fifteenth Century.]

Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent
Their ancient rage at Bosworth's purple field;
While, for which tyrant England should receive,
Her legions in incestuous murders mixed,
And daily horrors; till the fates were drunk
With kindred blood by kindred hands profused:
Another plague of more gigantic arm
Arose, a monster never known before,
Reared from Cocytus its portentous head;
This rapid fury not, like other pests,
Pursued a gradual course, but in a day
Rushed as a storm o'er half the astonished isle,
And strewed with sudden carcasses the land.

First through the shoulders, or whatever part
Was seized the first, a fervid vapour sprung;
With rash combustion thence, the quivering spark
Shot to the heart, and kindled all within;
And soon the surface caught the spreading fires.
Through all the yielding pores the melted blood
Gushed out in smoky sweats; but nought assuaged
The torrid heat within, nor aught relieved
The stomach's anguish. With incessant toil,

Desperate of ease, impatient of their pain,
They tossed from side to side. In vain the stream
Ran full and clear they burnt, and thirsted still.
The restless arteries with rapid blood
Beat strong and frequent. Thick and pantingly
The breath was fetched, and with huge labourings
heaved.

At last a heavy pain oppressed the head,
A wild delirium came: their weeping friends
Were strangers now, and this no home of theirs.
Harassed with toil on toil, the sinking powers
Lay prostrate and o'erthrown; a ponderous sleep
Wrapt all the senses up: they slept and died.

In some a gentle horror crept at first
O'er all the limbs; the sluices of the skin
Withheld their moisture, till by art provoked
The sweats o'erflowed, but in a clammy tide;
Now free and copious, now restrained and slow;
Of tinctures various, as the temperature

Had mixed the blood, and rank with fetid streams:
As if the pent-up humours by delay

Were grown more fell, more putrid, and malign.
Here lay their hopes (though little hope remained),
With full effusion of perpetual sweats

To drive the venom out. And here the fates
Were kind, that long they lingered not in pain.
For, who survived the sun's diurnal race,
Rose from the dreary gates of hell redeemed;
Some the sixth hour oppressed, and some the third.
Of many thousands, few untainted 'scaped;
Of those infected, fewer 'scaped alive;
Of those who lived, some felt a second blow;
And whom the second spared, a third destroyed.
Frantic with fear, they sought by flight to shun
The fierce contagion. O'er the mournful land
The infected city poured her hurrying swarms:
Roused by the flames that fired her seats around,
The infected country rushed into the town.
Some sad at home, and in the desert some
Abjured the fatal commerce of mankind.
In vain; where'er they fled, the fates pursued.
Others, with hopes more specious, crossed the main,
To seek protection in far-distant skies;

But none they found. It seemed the general air,
From pole to pole, from Atlas to the east,
Was then at enmity with English blood;
For but the race of England all were safe
In foreign climes; nor did this fury taste
The foreign blood which England then contained.
Where should they fly? The circumambient heaven
Involved them still, and every breeze was bane:
Where find relief? The salutary art
-Was mute, and, startled at the new disease,
In fearful whispers hopeless omens gave.

To Heaven, with suppliant rites they sent their

prayers;

Heaven heard them not. Of every hope deprived,
Fatigued with vain resources, and subdued
With woes resistless, and enfeebling fear,
Passive they sunk beneath the weighty blow.
Nothing but lamentable sounds were heard,
Nor aught was seen but ghastly views of death.
Infectious horror ran from face to face,
And pale despair. 'Twas all the business then
To tend the sick, and in their turns to die.
In heaps they fell; and oft the bed, they say,
The sickening, dying, and the dead contained.

SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE.

Few votaries of the muses have had the resolution to abandon their early worship, or to cast off'the Delilahs of the imagination,' when embarked on more gainful callings. An example of this, however, is afforded by the case of SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE -born in London in 1723, died 1780-who, having |

made choice of the law for his profession, and entered himself a student of the Middle Temple, took formal leave of poetry in a copy of natural and pleasing verses, published in Dodsley's Miscellany. Blackstone rose to rank and fame as a lawyer, wrote a series of masterly commentaries on the laws of England, was knighted, and died a judge in the court of Common Pleas. From some critical notes on Shakspeare by Sir William, published by Stevens, it would appear that, though he had forsaken his muse, he still-like Charles Lamb, when he had given up the use of the 'great plant' tobacco-loved to live in the suburbs of her graces.'

The Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse.
As, by some tyrant's stern command,
A wretch forsakes his native land,
In foreign climes condemned to roam
An endless exile from his home;
Pensive he treads the destined way,
And dreads to go; nor dares to stay;
Till on some neighbouring mountain's brow
He stops, and turns his eyes below;
There, melting at the well-known view,
Drops a last tear, and bids adieu :
So I, thus doomed from thee to part,
Gay queen of fancy and of art,
Reluctant move, with doubtful mind,
Oft stop, and often look behind.
Companion of my tender age,
Serenely gay, and sweetly sage,
How blithesome we were wont to rove,
By verdant hill or shady grove,
Where fervent bees, with humming voice,
Around the honied oak rejoice,
And aged elms with awful bend,
In long cathedral walks extend!
Lulled by the lapse of gliding floods,
Cheered by the warbling of the woods,
How blest my days, my thoughts how free,
In sweet society with thee!

Then all was joyous, all was young,
And years unheeded rolled along:
But now the pleasing dream is o'er,
These scenes must charm me now no more;
Lost to the fields, and torn from you-
Farewell!-a long, a last adieu.
Me wrangling courts, and stubborn law,
To smoke, and crowds, and cities draw:
There selfish faction rules the day,
And pride and avarice throng the way;
Diseases taint the murky air,
And midnight conflagrations glare;
Loose Revelry, and Riot bold,
In frighted streets their orgies hold;
Or, where in silence all is drowned,
Fell Murder walks his lonely round;
No room for peace, no room for you;
Adieu, celestial nymph, adieu !
Shakspeare, no more thy sylvan son,
Nor all the art of Addison,

Pope's heaven-strung lyre, nor Waller's ease,
Nor Milton's mighty self must please:
Instead of these, a formal band

In furs and coifs around me stand;
With sounds uncouth and accents dry,
That grate the soul of harmony,
Each pedant sage unlocks his store
Of mystic, dark, discordant lore,

And points with tottering hand the ways
That lead me to the thorny maze.
There, in a winding close retreat,
Is justice doomed to fix her seat;
There, fenced by bulwarks of the law,
She keeps the wondering world in awe;

And there, from vulgar sight retired,
Like eastern queen, is more admired.
Oh, let me pierce the secret shade
Where dwells the venerable maid!
There humbly mark, with reverent awe,
The guardian of Britannia's law;
Unfold with joy her sacred page,
The united boast of many an age;
Where mixed, yet uniform, appears
The wisdom of a thousand years.

In that pure spring the bottom view,
Clear, deep, and regularly true;
And other doctrines thence imbibe
Than lurk within the sordid scribe;
Observe how parts with parts unite
In one harmonious rule of right;
See countless wheels distinctly tend
By various laws to one great end;
While mighty Alfred's piercing soul
Pervades, and regulates the whole.
Then welcome business, welcome strife,
Welcome the cares, the thorns of life,
The visage wan, the pore-blind sight,
The toil by day, the lamp at night,
The tedious forms, the solemn prate,
The pert dispute, the dull debate,
The drowsy bench, the babbling hall,
For thee, fair Justice, welcome all !
Thus though my noon of life be past,
Yet let my setting sun, at last,
Find out the still, the rural cell,
Where sage retirement loves to dwell!
There let me taste the homefelt bliss
Of innocence and inward peace;
Untainted by the guilty bribe,
Uncursed amid the harpy tribe;
No orphan's cry to wound my ear;
My honour and my conscience clear.
Thus may I calmly meet my end,
Thus to the grave in peace descend.

RICHARD GLOVER.

RICHARD GLOVER (1712-1785), a London merchant, who sat several years in parliament as member for Weymouth, was distinguished in private life for his spirit and independence. He published two elaborate poems in blank verse, Leonidas and The Athenaid the former bearing reference to the memorable defence of Thermopyla, and the latter continuing the war between the Greeks and Persians. The length of these poems, their want of sustained interest, and lesser peculiarities not suited to the existing poetical taste, render them next to unknown in the present day. But there is smoothness and even vigour, a calm moral dignity and patriotic elevation in Leonidas, which might even yet find admirers. Thomson is said to have exclaimed, when he heard of the work of Glover: 'He write an epic poem, who never saw a mountain!' Yet Thomson himself, familiar as he was in his youth with mountain scenery, was tame and commonplace when he ventured on classic or epic subjects. Leonidas first appeared in 1737, and was hailed with acclamations by the Opposition or Prince of Wales's party, of which Glover was an active member. He was eloquent, intrepid, and of incorruptible integrity. In 1739, he published London, or the Progress of Commerce, a poem written to excite the national spirit against the Spaniards; in 1742, he appeared before the bar of the House of Commons, the chosen delegate of the London merchants, who complained of the neglect of their trade and interests. In 1744, he declined, as already mentioned, to join Mallet in writing a Life

of the Duke of Marlborough, though his affairs had become somewhat embarrassed. A fortunate speculation in copper enabled him to retrieve his position, and in 1761 he was returned M.P. for Weymouth. He distinguished himself by his advocacy of the mercantile interests, and during his leisure enlarged his poem of Leonidas from nine to twelve books (1770), and wrote as a sequel to it The Athenaid, which was published after his death, (in 1788). Two tragedies by Glover, Boadicea (1753), and Medea (1761), are but indifferent performances. His chief honour is that of having been an eloquent and patriotic city merchant, at the same time that he was eminent as a scholar and man of letters.

[Address of Leonidas.]

He alone
Remains unshaken. Rising, he displays
His godlike presence. Dignity and grace
Adorn his frame, and manly beauty, joined
With strength Herculean. On his aspect shines
Sublimest virtue and desire of fame,
Where justice gives the laurel; in his eye
The inextinguishable spark, which fires
The souls of patriots; while his brow supports
Undaunted valour, and contempt of death.
Serene he rose, and thus addressed the throng:
'Why this astonishment on every face,

Ye men of Sparta? Does the name of death
Create this fear and wonder? O my friends!
Why do we labour through the arduous paths
Which lead to virtue? Fruitless were the toil.
Above the reach of human feet were placed
The distant summit, if the fear of death
Could intercept our passage. But in vain
His blackest frowns and terrors he assumes
To shake the firmness of the mind which knows
That, wanting virtue, life is pain and woe;
That, wanting liberty, even virtue mourns,
And looks around for happiness in vain.
Then speak, O Sparta! and demand my life;
My heart, exulting, answers to thy call,
And smiles on glorious fate. To live with fame
The gods allow to many; but to die
With equal lustre is a blessing Heaven
Selects from all the choicest boons of fate,
And with a sparing hand on few bestows.'
Salvation thus to Sparta he proclaimed.
Joy, wrapt awhile in admiration, paused,
Suspending praise; nor praise at last resounds
In high acclaim to rend the arch of heaven;
A reverential murmur breathes applause.

The nature of the poem affords scope for interesting
situations and descriptions of natural objects in a
romantic country, which Glover occasionally avails
himself of with good effect. There is great beauty¦
and classic elegance in this sketch of the fountain
at the dwelling of Oileus:

Beside the public way an oval fount
Of marble sparkled with a silver spray
Of falling rills, collected from above.
The army halted, and their hollow casques
Dipped in the limpid stream. Behind it rose
An edifice, composed of native roots,
And oaken trunks of knotted girth unwrought.
Within were beds of moss. Old battered arms
Hung from the roof. The curious chiefs approach.
These words, engraven on a tablet rude,
Megistias reads; the rest in silence hear:
'Yon marble fountain, by Oileus placed,
To thirsty lips in living water flows;
For weary steps he framed this cool retreat;
A grateful offering here to rural peace,