Puslapio vaizdai
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The wall on which we tried our graving skill,
The very name we carv'd subsisting still;

The bench on which we sat while deep employ'd,
Though mangled, hack'd, and hew'd, not yet destroy'd;
The little ones, unbutton'd, glowing hot,
Playing our games, and on the very spot;
As happy as we once, to kneel and draw
The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw;
To pitch the ball into the grounded hat,
Or drive it devious with a dext'rous pat;
The pleasing spectacle at once excites
Such recollection of our own delights,
That, viewing it, we seem almost t' obtain
Our innocent sweet simple years again.

BOADICEA.

When the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
-Counsel of her country's gods,

Sage beneath the spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief;
Ev'ry burning word he spoke
Full of rage, and full of grief.

"Princess! if our aged eyes

Weep upon thy matchless wrongs, "Tis because resentment ties

All the terrours of our tongues.

"Rome shall perish-write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish, hopeless and abhorr'd,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.

"Rome, for empire far renown'd,
Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground-
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!

"Other Romans shall arise,

Heedless of a soldier's name;

Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize,

Harmony the path to fame.

"Then the progeny that springs

From the forests of our land,

Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings,
Shall a wider world command.

"Regions Cæsar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway;
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they."

Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but aweful lyre.

She, with all a monarch's pride,
Felt them in her bosom glow;
Rush'd to battle, fought, and died;
Dying hurl'd them at the foe.

"Ruffians, pitiless as proud,

Heav'n awards the vengeance due;

Empire is on us bestow'd,

Shame and ruin wait for you."

DR JAMES BEATTIE.

(1735-1803.)

JAMES BEATTIE, from the humble origin of son of a small farmer in the parish of Laurencekirk in Forfarshire, wrought himself, more by the native sterling Christian qualities of his character, than by any attributes of the highest genius, to a most estimable position in the literary ranks of his country. "About the age of twenty-six he obtained the professorship of moral philosophy in Marischal College, Aberdeen." His early poetry did not give promise of very great eminence in the art, and he himself subsequently burned every copy of the edition on which he could lay his hands. His "Minstrel," exhibiting the development of the poetical faculty in the mind of a youthful genius, is a poem of great gracefulness and ele gance, and is read with delight from the scholar-like beauty and correctness of its construction, though it does not reach the higher circle of the poetical idea. The poet and philosopher, after a life of exemplary Christian usefulness, died broken-hearted under the severe pressure of domestic afflictions, in the loss of his favourite children, and the incurable insanity of his wife.

THE HERMIT.

At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove;

'Twas thus, by the cave of the mountain afar,
While his harp rung symphonious, a hermit began:
No more with himself or with nature at war,
He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man.

"Ah! why, thus abandon'd to darkness and woe,
Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall !
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
And sorrow no longer thy bosom enthrall.
But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay,

Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to mourn;
O, sooth him whose pleasures like thine pass away:
Full quickly they pass, but they never return.

"Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky,
The moon half-extinguish'd her crescent displays:
But lately I mark'd, when majestic on high
She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze.
Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue
The path that conducts thee to splendour again.
But man's faded glory, what change shall renew!
Ah, foo!! to exult in a glory so vain!

""Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more;
I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;
For morn is approaching, your charms to restore,
Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glitt'ring with dew:
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;
Kind nature the embryo blossom will save.

But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn!
O, when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!

""Twas thus, by the glare of false science betray'd, That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind:

My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade, Destruction before me and sorrow behind.

'O pity, great Father of light,' then I cried,

Thy creature, who fain would not wander from thee; Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride:

From doubt and from darkness thou only can'st free.'

“And darkness and doubt are now flying away;

No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn :

So breaks on the traveller, faint and astray,

The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.

See Truth, Love, and Mercy in triumph descending,

And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom!

On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending, And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb."

THOMAS CHATTERTON.

(1752-1770.)

IN the latter half of the eighteenth century, there were practised, on the English public, two singular literary forgeries, the one in Macpherson's "Ossian," the other in Chatterton's alleged poems of the fifteenth century, which, though the productions of a boy between fifteen and seventeen, employed in lengthened debate the most eminent learning in England. Of all instances of precocity of mind, that of Chatterton is one of the most wonderful. Born in humble life in Bristol, receiving only a few years' education at a charity school, and apprenticed to an attorney in his fifteenth year, the wealth of his genius found in itself resources, and his indomitable perseverance and energy found time, to rear an amount of intellectual fruit that might furnish forth the labour of many a literary lifetime. At eleven years of age he wrote poetry superior in vigour and animation to that of Cowley and Pope a year or two older. His mind had received a bias to the study of the old literature, and to English antiquities, which he prosecuted under the most disadvantageous circumstances, till he so wreathed his genius into the spirit of a past age, with all its circumstance of rusty vellum and antique orthography, that the poems of his fictitious monk " Rowley," found, as he alleged, in an old chest in the church of St Mary Redcliffe, in Bristol, startled the antiquarian skill of an enlightened empire. Without referring to his other impositions beyond the sphere of poetry, we may remark that the pieces he produced display the finest genius, and a remarkable adaptation in external dress to their alleged age; and it was only the excess of their talent above that of their assigned century, a somewhat over-carefulness in disguise, a too liberal occurrence of coincidences with succeeding poets, and the utter silence of all history respecting the name of "Rowley," that demonstrated their fabrication by Chatterton's own brain and industry. It was a singular homage to his genius, that one argument for their genuine antiquity was the impossibility that Chatterton's age and opportunities should elaborate an amount of literature so exquisite and so vraisemblant. In his eighteenth year Chatterton came to London, with proud expectations of wealth and distinction, which were not fulfilled. His acquaintance with Wilkes and Beckford-(for he had adopted the obnoxious side of the existing politics; or rather he seems to have had political dishonesty enough to be willing to support any party that could be useful to him)-failed to advance his interest. Infidelity, into which his arrogant judgment had seduced him, disappointment, and intemperance, urged him into suicide by arsenic, ere he had completed his eighteenth year. Chatterton adds another to the victims whom history mourns as perishing in the folly or in the pride of genius. That noblest gift of heaven is often conferred, coupled with qualities and tendencies of mind that risk the most tremendous responsibilities; and most blessed and fortunate are they who, baptized, with Milton, into its holiest sanctities, exercise it as" ever in their great Taskmaster's eye."

The antique poems of Chatterton refer chiefly to early English history; those in modern verse, partly from the nature of the subjects, seldom do justice to his powers.

[We subjoin the following stanza from the Eclogue, "Elinour and Luga," as a specimen of Chatterton's antique language.]

Systers in sorrowe, on thys daise-eyed banke,

Where melancholych broods, we wylle lament,

Be wette wythe mornynge dewe and evene danke;
Lyche levynde okes in eche the odher bent,

Or lyche forlettenn halles of merrimente,

Whose gastlie mitches3 holde the train of fryghte, Where lethale ravens bark, and owlets wake the nyghte.

THE RESIGNATION.

O God, whose thunder shakes the sky,
Whose eye this atom globe surveys,
To thee, my only rock, I fly,

Thy mercy in thy justice praise.

The mystic mazes of thy will,
The shadows of celestial light,
Are past the powers of human skill;
But what th' Eternal acts is right.

O teach me in the trying hour,
When anguish swells the dewy tear,
To still my sorrows, own thy power,
Thy goodness love, thy justice fear.

If in this bosom aught but thee,
Encroaching sought a boundless sway,
Omniscience could the danger see,
And mercy look the cause away.

Then why, my soul, dost thou complain?
Why drooping seek the dark recess?
Shake off the melancholy chain,

For God created all to bless.

But, ah! my breast is human still;
The rising sigh, the falling tear,
My languid vitals' feeble rill,
The sickness of my soul declare.

But yet, with fortitude resign'd,
I'll thank th' infliction of the blow,
Forbid the sigh, compose my mind,
Nor let the gush of misery flow.

The gloomy mantle of the night,
Which on my sinking spirit steals,
Will vanish at the morning light,
Which God, my East, my Sun, reveals.

Levined, i. e. lightning-scathed.

2 Forsaken.

3 Ruins.

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