His dinted shield, his helmet he resigned.
O passenger! if born to noble deeds,

Thou wouldst obtain perpetual grace from Jove,
Devote thy vigour to heroic toils,

And thy decline to hospitable cares.

Rest here; then seek Oileus in his vale.'

In the Athenaid, we have a continuation of the same classic story and landscape. The following

is an exquisite description of a night-scene:

Silver Phoebe spreads

A light, reposing on the quiet lake,
Save where the snowy rival of her hue,
The gliding swan, behind him leaves a trail
In luminous vibration. Lo! an isle

Swells on the surface. Marble structures there
New gloss of beauty borrow from the moon
To deck the shore. Now silence gently yields
To measured strokes of oars. The orange groves,
In rich profusion round the fertile verge,
Impart to fanning breezes fresh perfumes
Exhaustless, visiting the scene with sweets,
Which soften even Briareus; but the son
Of Gobryas, heavy with devouring care,
Uncharmed, unheeding sits.

The scene presented by the shores of Salamis on the morning of the battle is thus strikingly depicted. The poet gives no burst of enthusiasm to kindle up his page, and his versification retains most of its usual hardness and want of flow and cadence; yet the assemblage described is so vast and magnificent, and his enumeration is so varied, that the picture carries with it a host of spirit-stirring associations:

[The Armies at Salamis.]

O sun! thou o'er Athenian towers,
The citadel and fanes in ruin huge,
Dost, rising now, illuminate a scene
More new, more wondrous to thy piercing eye
Than ever time disclosed. Phaleron's wave
Presents three thousand barks in pendants rich;
Spectators, clustering like Hymettian bees,
Hang on the burdened shrouds, the bending yards,
The reeling masts; the whole Cecropian strand,
Far as Eleusis, seat of mystic rites,

Is thronged with millions, male and female race,
Of Asia and of Libya, ranked on foot,
On horses, camels, cars. Egaleos tall,

Half down his long declivity, where spreads
A mossy level, on a throne of gold,
Displays the king, environed by his court,
In oriental pomp; the hill behind

By warriors covered, like some trophy huge,
Ascends in varied arms and banners clad;
Below the monarch's feet the immortal guard,
Line under line, erect their gaudy spears;

The arrangement, shelving downward to the beach,
Is edged by chosen horse. With blazing steel
Of Attic arms encircled, from the deep
Psyttalia lifts her surface to the sight,
Like Ariadne's heaven-bespangling crown,
A wreath of stars; beyond, in dread array,
The Grecian fleet, four hundred galleys, fill
The Salaminian Straits; barbarian prows
In two divisions point to either mouth
Six hundred brazen beaks of tower-like ships,
Unwieldy bulks; the gently swelling soil
Of Salamis, rich island, bounds the view.
Along her silver-sanded verge arrayed,
The men-at-arms exalt their naval spears,
Of length terrific. All the tender sex,
Ranked by Timothea, from a green ascent,
Look down in beauteous order on their sires,
Their husbands, lovers, brothers, sons, prepared

To mount the rolling deck. The younger dames
In bridal robes are clad; the matrons sage,
In solemn raiment, worn on sacred days;
But white in vesture, like their maiden breasts,
Where Zephyr plays, uplifting with his breath
The loosely waving folds, a chosen line
Of Attic graces in the front is placed;
From each fair head the tresses fall, entwined
With newly gathered flowerets; chaplets gay
The snowy hand sustains; the native curls,
O'ershading half, augment their powerful charms;
While Venus, tempered by Minerva, fills
Their eyes with ardour, pointing every glance
To animate, not soften. From on high
Her large controlling orbs Timothea rolls,
Surpassing all in stature, not unlike
In majesty of shape the wife of Jove,
Presiding o'er the empyreal fair.

A popular vitality has been awarded to a ballad of Glover's, while his epics have sunk into oblivion:

Admiral Hosier's Ghost.

[Written on the taking of Carthagena from the Spaniards, 1739. The case of Hosier, which is here so pathetically represented, was briefly this: In April 1726, that commander was sent with a strong fleet into the Spanish West Indies, to block up the galleons in the ports of that country; or, should they presume to come out, to seize and carry them into England. He accordingly arrived at the Bastimentos near Portobello; but being restricted by his orders from obeying the dictates of his courage, lay inactive on that station until he became the jest of the Spaniards. He afterwards removed to Carthagena, and continued cruising in those seas until the far greater part of his men perished deplorably by the diseases of that unhealthy climate. This brave man, seeing his best officers and men thus daily swept away, his ships exposed to inevitable destruction, and himself made the sport of the enemy, is said to have died of a broken heart.]

As near Portobello lying

On the gently swelling flood,
At midnight, with streamers flying,
Our triumphant navy rode;
There while Vernon sat all glorious

From the Spaniards' late defeat, And his crews, with shouts victorious, Drank success to England's fleet;

On a sudden, shrilly sounding,
Hideous yells and shrieks were heard;
Then, each heart with fear confounding,
A sad troop of ghosts appeared;
All in dreary hammocks shrouded,
Which for winding-sheets they wore,
And, with looks by sorrow clouded,
Frowning on that hostile shore.

On them gleamed the moon's wan lustre,
When the shade of Hosier brave,
His pale bands were seen to muster,
Rising from their watery grave:
O'er the glimmering wave he hied him,
Where the Burford reared her sail,
With three thousand ghosts beside him,
And in groans did Vernon hail.

'Heed, oh heed our fatal story!

I am Hosier's injured ghost; You who now have purchased glory At this place where I was lost : "Though in Portobello's ruin,

You now triumph free from fears, When you think on my undoing,

You will mix your joys with tears.

With that first ring I married youth,
Grace, beauty, innocence, and truth;
Taste long admired, sense long revered,
And all my Molly then appeared.

If she, by merit since disclosed,
Prove twice the woman I supposed,
I plead that double merit now,
To justify a double vow.

Here, then, to-day-with faith as sure,
With ardour as intense, as pure,
As when, amidst the rites divine,
I took thy troth, and plighted mine-
To thee, sweet girl, my second ring
A token and a pledge I bring:
With this I wed, till death us part,
Thy riper virtues to my heart;
Those virtues which, before untried,
The wife has added to the bride;
Those virtues, whose progressive claim,
Endearing wedlock's very name,
My soul enjoys, my song approves,
For conscience' sake as well as love's.

And why?-They shew me every hour Honour's high thought, Affection's power, Discretion's deed, sound Judgment's sentence, And teach me all things-but repentance.

FRANCIS FAWKES.

FRANCIS FAWKES (1721-1777) translated 'Anacreon, Sappho, Bion, and other classic poets, and wrote some pleasing original verses. He was a clergyman, and died vicar of Hayes, in Kent. Fawkes enjoyed the friendship of Johnson and Warton; but, however classic in his tastes and studies, he seems, like Oldys, to have relished a cup of English ale. The following song is still, and will always be, a favourite:

The Brown Jug.

Dear Tom, this brown jug that now foams with mild ale

In which I will drink to sweet Nan of the vale-
Was once Toby Fillpot, a thirsty old soul,
As e'er drank a bottle, or fathomed a bowl;
In bousing about 'twas his praise to excel,
And among jolly topers he bore off the bell.

It chanced as in dog-days he sat at his ease,
In his flower-woven arbour, as gay as you please,
With a friend and a pipe puffing sorrows away,
And with honest old stingo was soaking his clay,
His breath-doors of life on a sudden were shut,
And he died full as big as a Dorchester butt.

His body when long in the ground it had lain,
And time into clay had resolved it again,
A potter found out in its covert so snug,

And with part of fat Toby he formed this brown jug;
Now sacred to friendship, and mirth, and mild ale,
So here's to my lovely sweet Nan of the vale!

Johnson acknowledged that 'Frank Fawkes had done the Odes of Anacreon very finely.'

WILLIAM WHITEHEAD.

WILLIAM WHITEHEAD (1715-1785) succeeded to the office of poet-laureate, after it had been refused by Gray. He was the son of a baker in Cambridge, and distinguished himself at Winchester School, on leaving which he obtained a scholarship at Clarehall, in the university of his native town. He was

afterwards tutor to the son of the Earl of Jersey. Whitehead had a taste for the drama, and wrote The Roman Father, and Creusa, two indifferent plays. After he had received his appointment as laureate, he was attacked by Churchill, and a host of inferior satirists, but he wisely made no reply. In the family of Lord Jersey he enjoyed comfort and happiness, till death, at seventy, put a period to his inoffensive life.

Variety.

[This easy and playful poem opens with the description of a | rural pair of easy fortune, who live much apart from society.]

Two smiling springs had waked the flowers
That paint the meads, or fringe the bowers--
Ye lovers, lend your wondering ears,
Who count by months, and not by years-
Two smiling springs had chaplets wove
To crown their solitude, and love:
When, lo! they find, they can't tell how,
Their walks are not so pleasant now.
The seasons sure were changed; the place
Had, somehow, got a different face,
Some blast had struck the cheerful scene;
The lawns, the woods were not so green.
The purling rill, which murmured by,
And once was liquid harmony,
Became a sluggish, reedy pool;
The days grew hot, the evenings cool.
The moon, with all the starry reign,
Were melancholy's silent train.

And then the tedious winter-night-
They could not read by candle-light.

Full oft, unknowing why they did,
They called in adventitious aid.
A faithful favourite dog-'twas thus
With Tobit and Telemachus—
Amused their steps; and for a while
They viewed his gambols with a smile.
The kitten, too, was comical,
She played so oddly with her tail,
Or in the glass was pleased to find
Another cat, and peeped behind.

A courteous neighbour at the door,
Was deemed intrusive noise no more.
For rural visits, now and then,
Are right, as men must live with men.
Then cousin Jenny, fresh from town,
A new recruit, a dear delight!
Made many a heavy hour go down,

At morn, at noon, at eve, at night:
Sure they could hear her jokes for ever,
She was so sprightly and so clever!

Yet neighbours were not quite the thing--
What joy, alas! could converse bring
With awkward creatures bred at home-
The dog grew dull, or troublesome,
The cat had spoiled the kitten's merit,
And, with her youth, had lost her spirit.
And jokes repeated o'er and o'er,
Had quite exhausted Jenny's store.
-'And then, my dear, I can't abide
This always sauntering side by side.'
'Enough,' he cries; the reason's plain :
For causes never rack your brain.
Our neighbours are like other folks;
Skip's playful tricks, and Jenny's jokes,
Are still delightful, still would please,
Were we, my dear, ourselves at ease.
Look round, with an impartial eye,
On yonder fields, on yonder sky;
The azure cope, the flowers below,
With all their wonted colours glow;
The rill still murmurs; and the moon
Shines, as she did, a softer sun.

No change has made the seasons fail,
No comet brushed us with his tail.
The scene's the same, the same the weather-
We live, my dear, too much together.'

Agreed. A rich old uncle dies,
And added wealth the means supplies.
With eager haste to town they flew,
Where all must please, for all was new.

Why should we paint, in tedious song,
How every day, and all day long,
They drove at first with curious haste
Through Lud's vast town; or, as they passed
'Midst risings, fallings, and repairs
Of streets on streets, and squares on squares,
Describe how strong their wonder grew
At buildings-and at builders too?

* *

Advanced to fashion's wavering head,
They now, where once they followed, led;
Devised new systems of delight,
Abed all day, and up all night,

In different circles reigned supreme;
Wives copied her, and husbands him;
Till so divinely life ran on,
So separate, so quite bon-ton,
That, meeting in a public place,

They scarcely knew each other's face.
At last they met, by his desire,
A tête-à-tête across the fire;
Looked in each other's face a while,
With half a tear, and half a smile.
The ruddy health, which wont to grace
With manly glow his rural face

Now scarce retained its faintest streak,
So sallow was his leathern cheek.
She, lank and pale, and hollow-eyed,
With rouge had striven in vain to hide
What once was beauty, and repair
The rapine of the midnight air.

Silence is eloquence, 'tis said.
Both wished to speak, both hung the head.
At length it burst. "Tis time,' he cries,
'When tired of folly, to be wise.

Are you, too, tired?'-then checked a groan.
She wept consent, and he went on :

'How delicate the married life!
You love your husband, I my wife;
Not even satiety could tame,
Nor dissipation quench the flame.

"True to the bias of our kind,
'Tis happiness we wish to find.
In rural scenes retired we sought
In vain the dear, delicious draught,
Though blest with love's indulgent store,
We found we wanted something more.
'Twas company, 'twas friends to share
The bliss we languished to declare;
'Twas social converse, change of scene,
To soothe the sullen hour of spleen;
Short absences to wake desire,
And sweet regrets to fan the fire.

'We left the lonesome place, and found,

In dissipation's giddy round,

A thousand novelties to wake
The springs of life, and not to break.
As, from the nest not wandering far,
In light excursions through the air,
The feathered tenants of the grove
Around in mazy circles move,

Sip the cool springs that murmuring flow,
Or taste the blossom on the bough;
We sported freely with the rest;
And still, returning to the nest,
In easy mirth we chatted o'er
The trifles of the day before.

752

'Behold us now, dissolving quite In the full ocean of delight;

In pleasures every hour employ,
Immersed in all the world calls joy;
Our affluence easing the expense
Of splendour and magnificence;
Our company, the exalted set

Of all that's gay, and all that's great:
Nor happy yet! and where's the wonder!
We live, my dear, too much asunder!'
The moral of my tale is this:
Variety's the soul of bliss;

But such variety alone

As makes our home the more our own.
As from the heart's impelling power
The life-blood pours its genial store;
Though taking each a various way,
The active streams meandering play
Through every artery, every vein,
All to the heart return again;
From thence resume their new career,
But still return and centre there;
So real happiness below
Must from the heart sincerely flow;
Nor, listening to the siren's song,
Must stray too far, or rest too long.
All human pleasures thither tend;
Must there begin, and there must end;
Must there recruit their languid force,
And gain fresh vigour from their source.

DR JAMES GRAINGER.

DR JAMES GRAINGER (1721-1766) was, according to his own statement, seen by Mr Prior, the biographer of Goldsmith, 'of a gentleman's family in Cumberland.' He studied medicine in Edinburgh, was in the army, and, on the peace, established himself as a medical practitioner in London. His poem of Solitude appeared in 1755, and was praised by Johnson, who considered the opening 'very noble.' Grainger wrote several other pieces, translated Tibullus, and was a critic in the Monthly Review. In 1759, he went to St Christophers, in the West Indies, commenced practising as a physician, and married a lady of fortune. During his residence there, he wrote his poem of the Sugar-cane, which Shenstone thought capable of being rendered a good poem; and the arguments in which, Southey says, are ludicrously flat and formal.' One point is certainly ridiculous enough; 'he very poetically,' says Campbell, 'dignifies the poor negroes with the name of "swains." Grainger died in the West Indies.

Ode to Solitude.

O Solitude, romantic maid!

Whether by nodding towers you tread,
Or haunt the desert's trackless gloom,
Or hover o'er the yawning tomb,
Or climb the Andes' clifted side,
Or by the Nile's coy source abide,

Or starting from your half-year's sleep,
From Hecla view the thawing deep,
Or, at the purple dawn of day,
Tadmor's marble wastes survey,
You, recluse, again, I woo,
And again your steps pursue.

Plumed Conceit himself surveying,
Folly with her shadow playing,
Purse-proud, elbowing Insolence,
Bloated empiric, puffed Pretence,
Noise that through a trumpet speaks,
Laughter in loud peals that breaks,
Intrusion with a fopling's face-
Ignorant of time and place-

Sparks of fire Dissension blowing, Ductile, court-bred Flattery, bowing, Restraint's stiff neck, Grimace's leer, Squint-eyed Censure's artful sneer, Ambition's buskins, steeped in blood, Fly thy presence, Solitude.

Sage Reflection, bent with years,
Conscious Virtue, void of fears,
Muffled Silence, wood-nymph shy,
Meditation's piercing eye,
Halcyon Peace on moss reclined,
Retrospect that scans the mind,
Wrapt earth-gazing Reverie,
Blushing, artless Modesty,

Health that snuffs the morning air,
Full-eyed Truth with bosom bare,
Inspiration, Nature's child,
Seek the solitary wild.

You, with the tragic muse retired, The wise Euripides inspired; You taught the sadly pleasing air That Athens saved from ruins bare. You gave the Cean's tears to flow, And unlocked the springs of woe; You penned what exiled Naso thought, And poured the melancholy note. With Petrarch o'er Vaucluse you strayed, When death snatched his long-loved maid; You taught the rocks her loss to mourn, Ye strewed with flowers her virgin urn. And late in Hagley you were seen, With bloodshot eyes, and sombre mien; Hymen his yellow vestment tore, And Dirge a wreath of cypress wore. But chief your own the solemn lay That wept Narcissa young and gay; Darkness clapped her sable wing, While you touched the mournful string; Anguish left the pathless wild, Grim-faced Melancholy smiled, Drowsy Midnight ceased to yawn, The starry host put back the dawn; Aside their harps even seraphs flung To hear thy sweet Complaint, O Young! When all nature's hushed asleep, Nor Love nor Guilt their vigils keep, Soft you leave your caverned den, And wander o'er the works of men; But when Phosphor brings the dawn By her dappled coursers drawn, Again you to the wild retreat And the early huntsman meet, Where, as you pensive pace along, You catch the distant shepherd's song, Or brush from herbs the pearly dew, Or the rising primrose view. Devotion lends her heaven-plumed wings, You mount, and nature with you sings. But when mid-day fervours glow, To upland airy shades you go, Where never sunburnt woodman came, Nor sportsman chased the timid game; And there beneath an oak reclined, With drowsy waterfalls behind, You sink to rest.

Till the tuneful bird of night

From the neighbouring poplar's height,
Wake you with her solemn strain,
And teach pleased Echo to complain.

With you roses brighter bloom, Sweeter every sweet perfume; Purer every fountain flows, Stronger every wildling grows.

Let those toil for gold who please,
Or for fame renounce their ease.
What is fame? an empty bubble.
Gold? a transient shining trouble.
Let them for their country bleed,
What was Sidney's, Raleigh's meed?
Man's not worth a moment's pain,
Base, ungrateful, fickle, vain.
Then let me, sequestered fair,

To your sibyl grot repair;
On yon hanging cliff it stands,
Scooped by nature's salvage hands,
Bosomed in the gloomy shade
Of cypress not with age decayed.
Where the owl still-hooting sits,
Where the bat incessant flits,
There in loftier strains I'll sing
Whence the changing seasons spring;
Tell how storms deform the skies,
Whence the waves subside and rise,
Trace the comet's blazing tail,
Weigh the planets in a scale;
Bend, great God, before thy shrine,
The bournless macrocosm's thine.

JAMES MERRICK.

JAMES MERRICK (1720-1766) was a distinguished classical scholar, and tutor to Lord North at Oxford. He took orders, but was unable to do duty, from delicate health. Merrick wrote some hymns, and attempted a version of the psalms, with no great success. We subjoin an amusing and instructive fable by this worthy divine:

The Chameleon.

Oft has it been my lot to mark
A proud, conceited, talking spark,
With eyes that hardly served at most
To guard their master 'gainst a post;
Yet round the world the blade has been,
To see whatever could be seen.
Returning from his finished tour,
Grown ten times perter than before;
Whatever word you chance to drop,
The travelled fool your mouth will stop:
'Sir, if my judgment you'll allow-
I've seen-and sure I ought to know.'-
So begs you'd pay a due submission,
And acquiesce in his decision.

Two travellers of such a cast, As o'er Arabia's wilds they passed, And on their way, in friendly chat, Now talked of this, and then of that; Discoursed awhile, 'mongst other matter, Of the Chameleon's form and nature. 'A stranger animal,' cries one, 'Sure never lived beneath the sun : A lizard's body lean and long, A fish's head, a serpent's tongue, Its foot with triple claw disjoined ; And what a length of tail behind! How slow its pace! and then its hucWho ever saw so fine a blue?'

'Hold there,' the other quick replies; "'Tis green-I saw it with these eyes, As late with open mouth it lay, And warmed it in the sunny ray; Stretched at its ease, the beast I viewed, And saw it eat the air for food."

'I've seen it, sir, as well as you,
And must again affirm it blue;
At leisure I the beast surveyed
Extended in the cooling shade.'