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Barren, brown, and rough appear;
Still we tread the same coarse way;
The present's still a cloudy day.

O may I with myself agree,
And never covet what I see !
Content me with an humble shade,
My passion's tam'd, my wishes laid;
For while our wishes wildly roll,
We banish quiet from the soul:
"T is thus the busy beat the air,
And misers gather wealth and care.

NATHANIEL COTTON.

Born (probably) 1707--Died 1788.

COTTON was a physician, remarkable for his success and humanity in the treatment of mental disorders. He kept an asylum for insane patients in the town of St. Albans, and called it the College. Cowper was for some time under his care. Few particulars of his life have been preserved, but there are many testimonies to the excellence of his character. Among these is the following affectionate tribute to his memory from one of the letters of Cowper. "I reckon it one instance of the Providence that has attended me throughout this whole event, that instead of being delivered into the hands of one of the London physicians, who were so much nearer that I wonder I was not, I was carried to Dr. Cotton. I was not only treated by him with the greatest tenderness while I was ill, and with the utmost diligence, but when my reason was restored to me, and I had so much need of a religious friend to converse with, to whom I could open my mind upon the subject without reserve, I could hardly have found a fitter person for the purpose. My eagerness and anxiety to settle my opinions on that long neglected point made it necessary that while my mind was yet weak, and my spirits uncertain, I should have some assistance. The Doctor was as ready to administer relief to me in this article likewise, and as well qualified to do it, as in that which was more immediately his province. How many physicians would have thought this an irregular appetite and a symptom of remaining madness! But if it were so, my friend was as mad as myself, and it is well for me that he was so."

Mr Hayley observes of Dr. Cotton, that he was "a scholar and a poet, who to many accomplishments added a peculiar sweetness of manners in very advanced life."

His writings do not display an original genius, but are full of good sense, benevolence, and piety. The Fireside is a beautiful domestic picture.

THE FIRESIDE.

DEAR Chloe, while the busy crowd,
The vain, the wealthy, and the proud,
In folly's maze advance;
Though singularity and pride

Be call'd our choice, we'll step aside,
Nor join the giddy dance.

From the gay world we'll oft retire
To our own family and fire,

Where love our hours employs;
No noisy neighbour enters here,
No intermeddling stranger near,
To spoil our heartfelt joys.

If solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies;
And they are fools who roam;
The world hath nothing to bestow,
From our ownselves our bliss must flow,
And that dear hut-our home.

Of rest was Noah's dove bereft,
When with impatient wing she left
That safe retreat, the ark;
Giving her vain excursions o'er,
The disappointed bird once more
Explor'd the sacred bark.

Though fools spurn Hymen's gentle powers,
We who improve his golden hours,

By sweet experience know,
That marriage, rightly understood,
Gives to the tender and the good
A paradise below!

Our babes shall richest comforts bring;
If tutor❜d right they'll prove a spring
Whence pleasures ever rise:

We'll form their mind with studious care,
To all that's manly, good, and fair,

And train them for the skies.

While they our wisest hours engage,
They'll joy our youth, support our age,
And crown our hoary hairs;
They'll grow in virtue every day,
And thus our fondest loves repay,
And recompense our cares.

No borrow'd joys! they're all our own,
While to the world we live unknown,
Or by the world forgot:
Monarchs! we envy not your state,
We look with pity on the great,
And bless our humble lot.

Our portion is not large, indeed,
But then how little do we need,
For Nature's calls are few!
In this the art of living lies,
To want no more than may suffice,
And make that little do.

We'll therefore relish with content
Whate'er kind Providence has sent,
Nor aim beyond our power;
For, if our stock be very small,
'T is prudence to enjoy it all,
Nor lose the present hour,

To be resign'd when ills betide,
Patient when favours are denied,

And pleas'd with favours given :
Dear Chloe, this is wisdom's part,
This is that incense of the heart,
Whose fragrance smells to Heaven.

We'll ask no long-protracted treat,
Since winter-life is seldom sweet;
But, when our feast is o'er,
Grateful from table we 'll arise,

Nor grudge our sons, with envious eyes,
The relics of our store.

Thus hand in hand through life we'll go ;
Its chequer'd paths of joy and woe
With cautious steps we 'll tread;
Quit its vain scenes without a tear,
Without a trouble or a fear,

And mingle with the dead.

While conscience, like a faithful friend,
Shall through the gloomy vale attend,
And cheer our dying breath;
Shall, when all other comforts cease,
Like a kind angel whisper peace,

And smooth the bed of death.

JOHN ARMSTRONG.

Born 1709-Died 1779.

ARMSTRONG was a physician. He published many prose and poetical miscellanies, though none of them display either the fire of genius or the elevation of pure moral sentiment, and his literary fame rests almost exclusively upon his Art cf Preserving Health.

This poem has given him deserved celebrity. He is original, both in the choice of his subject and the manner of treating it. His moral associations are dignified and sometimes sublime, and his versification, though it wants strength and nervous harmony, is yet free from harshness, and is uniform in its flow.

"On the whole," says Campbell, "he is likely to be remembered as a poet of judicious thoughts and correct expression; and, as far as the rarely successful application of verse to subjects of science can be admired, an additional merit must be ascribed to the hand, which has reared poetical flowers on the dry and difficult ground of philosophy."

BENIFIT OF AN AIRY SITUATION.

MEANTIME, the moist malignity to shun

Of burden❜d skies; mark where the dry champaign
Swells into cheerful hills; where marjoram
And thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air;
And where the cynorrhodon with the rose
For fragrance vies: for in the thirsty soil
Most fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes.
There bid thy roofs high on the basking steep
Ascend, there light thy hospitable fires.
And let them see the winter-morn arise,
The summer-evening blushing in the west;
While with umbrageous oaks the ridge behind
O'erhung, defends you from the blustering north,
And bleak affliction of the peevish East.
O! 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 th' harmonious frame.
Besides, the sportive brook forever shakes

The trembling air, that floats from hill to hill,
From vale to mountain, with incessant change
Of purest element, refreshing still

Your airy seat, and uninfected gods.

Chiefly for this I praise the man who builds
High on the breezy ridge, whose lofty sides
Th' ethereal deep with endless billows chafes:
His purer mansion nor contagious years
Shall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy.

ADDRESS TO THE NAIADS.

Now come, ye Naiads, to the fountains lead;
Now let me wander through your gelid reign.
I burn to view th' enthusiastic wilds

By mortal else untrod. I hear the din
Of waters thundering o'er the ruin'd cliffs.
With holy reverence I approach the rocks
Whence glide the streams renown'd in ancient song.
Here from the desart down the rumbling steep
First springs the Nile; here bursts the sounding Po
In angry waves; Euphrates hence devolves
A mighty flood to water half the East;
And there, in gothic solitude reclin❜d,
The cheerless Tanais pours his hoary urn.
What solemn twilight! What stupendous shades
Enwrap these infant floods! Through every nerve
A sacred horror thrills, a pleasing fear

Glides o'er my frame. The forest deepens round;
And more gigantic still, th' impending trees
Stretch their extravagant arms athwart the gloom.
Are these the confines of some fairy world?
A land of genii? Say, beyond these wilds
What unknown nations? if indeed beyond
Aught habitable lies. And whither leads,
To what strange regions, or of bliss or pain,
That subterraneous way? Propitious maids,
Conduct me, while with fearful steps I tread
This trembling ground. The task remains to sing
Your gifts, (so Pæon, so the powers of health
Command) to praise your crystal element:
The chief ingredient in Heaven's various works;
Whose flexile genius sparkles in the gem,
Grows firm in oak, and fugitive in wine;
The vehicle, the scource of nutriment
And life, to all that vegetate or live.

O comfortable streams! with eager lips
And trembling hand the languid thirsty quaff
New life in you; fresh vigour fills their veins.

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