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WILLIAM MUNFORD.

[Born, 1775. Died, 1825.]

WILLIAM MUNFORD, the translator of the " Ilind." was born in the county of Mecklenburg, in Virginia, on the fifteenth of August, 1775. His father, Colonel ROBERT MUNFORD, was honourably distinguished in affairs during the Revolution, and afterward gave much attention to literature. Some of his letters, to be found in collections relating to the time, are written with grace and vigour, and he was the author of several dramatic pieces, of considerable merit, which, with a few minor poems, were published by his son, the subject of the present article, at Petersburg, in 1798. In his best comedy, "The Candidates," in three acts, he exposes to contempt the falsehood and corruption by which it was frequently attempted to influence the elections. In "The Patriots," in five acts, he contrasts, probably with an eye to some instance in Virginia, a real and pretended love of country. He had commenced a translation of Ovin's " Metamorphoses" into English verse, and had finished the first book, when death arrested his labours. He was a man of wit and humour, and was respected for many social virtues. His literary activity is referred to thus particularly, because I have not seen that the pursuits and character of the father, have been noticed by any of the writers upon the life of the son, which was undoubtedly in a very large degree influenced by them.

WILLIAM MUNFORD was transferred from an academy at Petersburg, to the college of William and Mary, when only twelve years of age. In a letter written soon after he entered his fourteenth year, we have some information in regard to his situation and prospects. "I received from nature," he says, "a weakly constitution and a sickly body; and I have the unhappiness to know that my poor mother is in want. I am absent from her and my dear sisters. Put this in the scale of evil. I possess the rare and almost inestimable blessing of a friend in Mr. WYTHE and in JOHN RANDOLPH; I have a mother in whose heart I have a large share; two sisters, whose affections I flatter myself are fixed upon me; and fair prospects before me, provided I can complete my education, and am not destitute of the necessaries of life. Put these in the scale of good." This was a brave letter for a boy to write under such circumstances.

Mr. WYTHE here referred to was afterward the celebrated chancellor. He was at this time professor of law in the college, and young MUNFORD lived in his family; and, sharing the fine enthusiasm with which the retired statesman regarded the literature of antiquity, he became an object of his warm affection. His design to translate the “ Iliad" was formed at an early period, and it was probably encouraged by Mr. WYTHE, who per

sonally instructed him in ancient learning. In 1792, when Mr. WYTHE was made chancellor, and removed to Richmond, Mr. MUNFORD accompanied him, but he afterward returned to the college, where he had graduated with high honours, to at tend to the law lectures of Mr. ST. GEORGE TUCKER. In his twentieth year he was called to the bar, in his native county, and his abilities and industry soon secured for him a respectable practice. He rose rapidly in his profession, and in the public confidence, and in 1797 was chosen a member of the House of Delegates, in which he continued until 1802, when he was elected to the senate, which he left after four years, to enter the Privy Council, of which he was a conspicuous member until 1811. He then received the place of clerk of the House of Delegates, which he retained until his death. This occurred at Richmond, where he had resided for nineteen years, on the twentyfirst of July, 1825. In addition to his ordinary professional and political labours, he reported the decisions of the Virginia Supreme Court of Ap peals, preparing six annual volumes without assistance, and four others, afterward, in connexion with Mr. W. W. HENRY. He possessed in a remarkable degree the affectionate respect of the people of the commonwealth; and the House of Delegates, upon his death, illustrated their regard for his memory by appointing his eldest son to the office which he had so long held, and which has thus for nearly a quarter of a century longer continued in his family.

The only important literary production of Mr. MUNFORD is his HOMER. This was his life-labour. The amazing splendour of the Tale of Troy captivated his boyish admiration, and the cultiva tion of his own fine mind enabled him but to see more and more its beauty and grandeur. It is not known at what time he commenced his ver sion, but a large portion of it had been written in 1811, and the work was not completed until a short time before he died. In his modest preface he says: "The author of this translation was induced to undertake it by fond admiration of the almost unparalleled sublimity and beauty of the original; neither of which peculiar graces of HoMER's muse has, he conceives, been sufficiently expressed in the smooth and melodious rhymes of POPE. It is true that the fine poem of that elegant writer, which was the delight of my boy. ish days, and will always be read by me with un common pleasure, appears in some parts more beautiful than even the work of HOMER himself; but frequently it is less beautiful; and seldom does it equal the sublimity of the Greek." He had not seen CowPER'S "Iliad" until his own was consid erably advanced, and it does not appear that he

was ever acquainted with CHAPMAN'S or SOTHEBY'S. He wrote, too, before the Homeric poetry had received the attention of those German scholars whose masterly criticisms have given to its literature an entirely new character. But he had studied the "Iliad" until his own mind was thoroughly imbued with its spirit; he approached his task with the fondest enthusiasm; well equipped with the best learning of his day; a style fashioned upon the most approved models: dignified, various, and disciplined into uniform elegance; and a judicial habit of mind, joined with a consci

EXTRACTS FROM THE "ILIAD."

THE MEETING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.
To her the mighty HECTOR made reply:
"All thou hast said employs my thoughtful mind.
But from the Trojans much I dread reproach,
And Trojan dames whose garments sweep the
If, like a coward, I should shun the war; [ground,
Nor does my soul to such disgrace incline,
Since to be always bravest I have learn'd,
And with the first of Troy to lead the fight;
Asserting so my father's lofty claim
To glory, and my own renown in arms.
For well I know, in heart and mind convinced,
A day will come when sacred Troy must fall,
And PRIAM, and the people of renown'd
Spear-practised PRIAM! Yet for this, to me
Not such concern arises; not the woes
Of all the Trojans, not my mother's griefs,
Nor royal PRIAM's nor my brethren's deaths,
Many and brave, who slain by cruel foes
Will be laid low in dust, so wring my heart
As thy distress, when some one of the Greeks
In brazen armour clad, shall drive thee hence,
Thy days of freedom gone, a weeping slave!
Perhaps at Argos thou mayst ply the loom,
For some proud mistress; or mayst water bring,
From Mepsa's or Hyperia's fountain, sad
And much reluctant, stooping to the weight
Of sad necessity and some one, then,
Seeing thee weep, will say, 'Behold the wife
Of HECTOR, who was first in martial might
Of all the warlike Trojans, when they fought
Around the walls of Ilion!' So will speak
Some heedless passer-by, and grief renew'd
Excite in thee, for such a husband lost,
Whose arm might slavery's evil day avert.
Rat me may then a heap of earth conceal
Within the silent tomb, before I hear
Thy shrieks of terror and captivity."

This said, illustrious HECTOR stretch'd his arms
To take his child; but to the nurse's breast
The babe clung crying, hiding in her robe
His little face, affrighted to behold
His father's awful aspect; fearing too

The brazen helm, and crest with horse-hair crown'd, Which, nodding dreadful from its lofty cone, Alarm'd him. Sweetly then the father smiled, And sweetly smiled the mother! Soon the chief Removed the threatening helmet from his head, And placed it on the ground, all beaming bright;

entious determination to present the living HOMER, as he was known in Greece, to the readers of our time and language.

His manuscript remained twenty years in the possession of his family, and was finally published in two large octavo volumes, in Boston, in 1846. It received the attention due from our scholars to such a performance, and the general judgment appears to have assigned it a place near to CHAPMAN'S and CowPER's in fidelity, and between COWPER'S and POPE's in elegance, energy, and all the best qualities of an English poem.

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Then having fondly kiss'd his son beloved
And toss'd him playfully, he thus to Jove
And all the immortals pray'd: "O grant me, Jove,
And other powers divine, that this my son
May be, as I am, of the Trojan race
In glory chief. So! let him be renown'd
For warlike prowess and commanding sway
With power and wisdom join'd, of Ilion king!
And may the people say, This chief excels
His father much, when from the field of fame
Triumphant he returns, bearing aloft
The bloody spoils, some hostile hero slain,
And his fond mother's heart expands with joy !"
He said, and placed his child within the arms
Of his beloved spouse. She him received,
And softly on her fragrant bosom laid,
Smiling with tearful eyes. To pity moved,
Her husband saw: with kind consoling hand
He wiped the tears away, and thus he spake:
"My dearest love! grieve not thy mind for me
Excessively. No man can send me hence,
To Pluto's hall, before the appointed time;
And surely none of all the human race,
Base or e'en brave, has ever shunn'd his fate-
His fate foredoom'd, since first he saw the light.
But now, returning home, thy works attend,
The loom and distaff, and direct thy maids.
In household duties, while the war shall be
Of men the care; of all, indeed, but most
The care of me, of all in Ilion born."

EMBARKATION OF THE GREEKS.
When with food and drink
All were supplied, the striplings crown'd with wine
The foaming bowls, and handed round to each,
In cups, a portion to libations due.

They, all day long, with hymns the god appeased;
The sons of Greece melodious pœans sang
In praise of great Apollo-he rejoiced

To hear that pleasant song-and when the sun
Descended to the sea, and darkness came,
They near the cables of their vessels slept.
Soon as the rosy-finger'd queen appear'd,
Aurora, lovely daughter of the dawn,
Toward the camp of Greece they took their way,
And friendly Phoebus gave propitious gales.
They raised the mast, and stretch'd the snowy sheet,
To catch the breeze which fill'd the swelling sail.
Around the keel the darken'd waters roar,
As swift the vessel flies. The billows dark
She quickly mounting, stemm'd the watery way.

JOHN SHAW.

[Born, 1778. Died, 1809.]

JOHN SHAW was born in Annapolis, Maryland, on the fourth of May, 1778; graduated at St. John's College, in that city, in 1796; after studying medicine two years, with a private teacher, entered the medical school connected with the University of Pennsylvania, in 1798; in the same year suddenly sailed for Algiers, as surgeon of several vessels built in this country for the Algerine government; became secretary to General Eaton, our consul at Tunis; returned to Annapolis in 1800; the next year went to Edinburgh for the completion of his professional education; in 1803 left Scotland with Lord

WHO HAS ROBBED THE OCEAN CAVE?

WHO has robbed the ocean cave,
To tinge thy lips with coral hue?
Who, from India's distant wave,
For thee those pearly treasures drew?
Who, from yonder orient sky,
Stole the morning of thine eye?
Thousand charms thy form to deck,
From sea, and earth, and air are torn;
Roses bloom upon thy cheek,

On thy breath their fragrance borne:

Guard thy bosom from the day, Lest thy snows should melt away. But one charm remains behind,

Which mute earth could ne'er impart; Nor in ocean wilt thou find,

Nor in the circling air, a heart :

Fairest, wouldst thou perfect be,
Take, oh take that heart from me.

THE LAD FROM TUCKAHOE.

On the lad from Tuckahoe, Is the lad whom I love dearly, I tell it you sincerely,

That all the truth may know. From the day that first I knew him He struck my fancy so, That my love shall still pursue him, The lad from Tuckahoe.

He alighted at the door, Where my aunt and I were spinning, And his looks they were so winning, I thought of work no more. My aunt, her anger hiding,

Ask'd what made me trifle so, But I never mind her chiding, When he comes from Tuckahoe.

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Selkirk, then about to establish his colony on the north side of Lake St. Clair; in 1805 settled in his native town as a physician; in 1807 was married, and removed to Baltimore, and was busy with efforts to found a medical college there, when his health failed, and died, on a voyage to the Bahama Islands, on the tenth of January, 1809. He had been a writer for "The Port Folio," and other periodicals, and after his death a collection of his poems was published in Baltimore. They have not generally much merit, but among them is a beautiful song,beginning, "Who has robbed the ocean cave?" which will live.

THE FALSE MAIDEN.

OH, wert thou hail'd the sole queen

Of all that greets the day-star's view,
And brighter were thy beauty's sheen
Than ever form that fancy drew,
Yet I would never love thee-
No, no,
I would not love thee!
Nor ever sigh or tear of mine
Should idly strive to move thee.
As brightly rolls thy dark eye,

And curling falls thy glossy hair,
As soft thy warm cheek's crimson die
They swelling bosom still as fair,
As when I first did love thee,
Most tenderly did love thee;
But now no more my passion lives
Since false as fair I prove thee.

For ah! thy flinty cold heart

Ill suits thy beauty's treacherous glow, "T is filled alone with woman's art, And ne'er could love or pity know. Ah, wo to him who loves thee!Not knowing thee he loves thee; For thou canst trifle with his woes, While passion never moves thee. With what fond love I wooed thee, Each sleepless night sad witness bears, My breast that heaved with sighs for thee, My wan cheek wet with bitter tears.

All told how much I loved thee, And thou didst know I loved thee, And thou couldst smile to see the pain Of him who dearly loved thee. But broken is the fond spell:

My fate no more depends on thee; And thou, perhaps, one day shalt tell Thy sorrow and remorse for me;

For none can ever love thee

As dearly as I loved thee,

And I shall court thy chains no more,—
No! no! I will not love thee!

CLEMENT C. MOORE.

[Born about 1778.]

CLEMENT C. MOORE, LL. D., a son of the Right Reverend BENJAMIN MOORE, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York, was born at Newtown, on Long Island, about the year 1778, and graduated bachelor of arts at Columbia College in 1799. His early addiction to elegant literature was illustrated in various poetical and prose contributions to the "Port Folio" and the New York "Evening Post ;" and his abilities as a critic were shown in a pungent reviewal of contemporary American poetry, especially of Mr. JOSEPH STORY'S "Powers of Solitude," in a letter prefixed to his friend JOHN DUER'S "New Translation of the Third Satire of JUVENAL, with Miscellaneous Poems, Original and Translated," which appeared in 1806. "Anna Matilda," and "Della Crusca," were still the fashionable models of our sentimentalists, and Mr. STORY followed Mrs. MORTON, ROBERT TREAT PAINE, WILLIAM LADD, and others of that school, who, to use Mr. MOORE's language, "if they could procure from the wardrobe of poesy a sufficient supply of dazzling ornaments wherewith to deck their intellectual offspring, were utterly regardless whether the body of sense which these decorations were designed to render attractive were worthy of attention, or mean and distorted and in danger of being overwhelmed by the profusion of its ornaments.'

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Devoting his attention to biblical learning, Mr.

ROBERT MERRY, after being graduated master of arts at Oxford, went to Italy, and by some means was elected into the celebrated Florentine academy of "Della Crusca," the name of which he adopted, with characteristic modesty, as the signature of numerous pieces of verse which he wrote in rapid succession for "The Florence Miscellany," and a periodical in London called "The World." He became the leader of a school of small poets, one of whom was Mrs. Piozzi, so well known to the readers of BOSWELL, who wrote under the pseudonym of "Anna Matilda," and another, Mrs. ROBINSON, a profligate actress, who announced herself as "Laura Maria." The "nonsense verses" of these people became fashionable; the press teemed for some years with their silly effusions; and men of taste could not refrain from regarding them as an intolerable nuisance. At the same time a base fellow, named JOHN WILLIAMS, was writing lampoons in verse under the name of " Anthony Pasquin." After the publication of GIFFORD'S "Baviad and Mæviad," "Anthony Pasquin" was driven from England by contempt, and "Della Crusca" by derision; and both found an asylum in the United States- the libeller to become the editor of a democratic newspaper, and the sentimentalist to acquire an influence over our fledgeling poets not less apparent than that which TENNYSON has exerted in later years. He resided in our principal cities, and continued to write and publish till he died, in Baltimore, on the twenty-fourth of December, 1798, in the forty-third year of his age. STORY, in his "Powers of Solitude," pays him the following tribute:

"Wild bard of fancy! o'er thy timeless tomb
Shall weep the cypress, and the laurel bloom;
While village nymphs, composed each artless play,

To sing, at evening close, their roundelay,

With Spring's rich flowers shall dress thy sacred grave,
Where sad Patapsco rolls his freighted wave."

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MOORE in 1809 published in two volumes the first American "Lexicon of the Hebrew Language," and he was afterwards many years professor of Hebrew and Greek in the General Theological Seminary, of which he was one of the founders and principal benefactors. His only or most important publications in later years have been a volume of "Poems," in 1844, and "George Castriot, surnamed Scanderbeg, King of Albania," an historical biography, in 1852.

In some touching lines to Mr. SOUTHEY, written in 1832, Dr. MOORE reveals a portion of his private history, which proves that the happiest condition is not exempt from the common ills; but his life appears to have been nearly all passed very quietly, in the cultivation of learning, and in intercourse with a few congenial friends. In his old age, sending a bunch of flowers to the late Mr. PHILIP HONE, he wrote to him:

"These new-cull'd blossoms which I send,
With breath so sweet and tints so gay,
I truly know not, my kind friend,
In Flora's language what they say;
"Nor which one hue I should select,

Nor how they all should be combined,
That at a glance you might detect

The true emotions of my mind.
"But, as the rainbow's varied hues,

If mingled in proportions right,
All their distinctive radiance lose,
And only show unspotted white.
"Thus, into one I would combine

These colours that so various gleam,
And bid this offering only shine

With friendship's pure and tranquil beam."

In his answer, Mr. HONE says:

"Filled as thou art with attic fire,

And skilled in classic lore divine,
Not yet content, wouldst thou aspire
In Flora's gorgeous wreath to shine?
"Come as thou wilt, my warm regard,

And welcome, shall thy steps attend;
Scholar, musician, florist, bard-

More dear to me than all, as friend." In the preface to the collection of his poems, Dr. MOORE remarks that he has printed the melancholy and the lively, the serious, the sportive, and even the trifling, that his children, to whom the book is addressed, might have as true a picture as possible of his mind. They are all marked by good taste and elegance. "I do not pay my readers," he says, "so ill a compliment as to offer the contents of this volume to their view as the mere amusements of my idle hours, as though the refuse of my thoughts were good enough for them. On the contrary, some of the pieces have cost me much time and thought, and I have composed them all as carefully and correctly as I could."

A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS.

"T WAS the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap-
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon, on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by

name;

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen !

On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Donder and Blitzen-
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall!
Now, dash away, dash away, dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So, up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys-and St. Nicholas too.
And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnisht with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedlar just opening his pack.
His eyes how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook,when he laugh'd, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump; a right jolly old elf;
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle;
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

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TO MY CHILDREN,

AFTER HAVING MY PORTRAIT TAKEN FOR THEM.

THIS semblance of your parent's time-worn face
Is but a sad bequest, my children dear:
Its youth and freshness gone, and in their place
The lines of care, the track of many a tear!
Amid life's wreck, we struggle to secure
Some floating fragment from oblivion's wave:
We pant for something that may still endure,
And snatch at least a shadow from the grave.
Poor, weak, and transient mortals! why so vain
Of manly vigour, or of beauty's bloom?
An empty shade for ages may remain

When we have mouldered in the silent tomb. But no! it is not we who moulder there,

We, of essential light that ever burns; We take our way through untried fields of air, When to the earth this earth-born frame returns.

And 't is the glory of the master's art

Some radiance of this inward light to find, Some touch that to his canvas may impart A breath, a sparkle of the immortal mind.

Alas! the pencil's noblest power can show

But some faint shadow of a transient thought, Some wakened feeling's momentary glow,

Some swift impression in its passage caught.

Oh that the artist's pencil could portray

A father's inward bosom to your eyes,
What hopes, and fears, and doubts perplex his way,
What aspirations for your welfare rise.

Then might this unsubstantial image prove
When I am gone, a guardian of your youth,
A friend forever urging you to move
In paths of honour, holiness, and truth.
Let fond imagination's power supply

The void that baffles all the painter's art; And when those mimic features meet your eye, Then fancy that they speak a parent's heart.

Think that you still can trace within those eyes,
The searching glance that every fault espies,
The kindling of affection's fervid beam,
The fond anticipation's pleasing dream.

Fancy those lips still utter sounds of praise,

Or kind reproof that checks each wayward will, The warning voice, or precepts that may raise Your thoughts above this treacherous world

of ill.

And thus shall art attain her loftiest power;
To noblest purpose shall her efforts tend:
Not the companion of an idle hour,
But Virtue's handmaid, and Religion's friend.

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