SCENE FROM DOUGLASS.

Lord and Lady Randolph.

Lady R. Alas! my lord, I've heard unwelcome news; The Danes are landed.

Lord R. Ay, no inroad this,

Of the Northumbrian, bent to take a spoil ;—
No sportive war, no tournament essay,

Of some young knight, resolved to break a spear,
And stain with hostile blood his maiden arms.

The Danes are landed. We must beat them back,
Or live the slaves of Denmark.

Lady R. Dreadful times!

Lord R. The fenceless villages are all forsaken;
The trembling mothers and their children lodged
In well girt towers and castles; whilst the men
Retire indignant. Yet like broken waves,
They but retire, more awful to return.

Lady R. Immense, as fame reports, the Danish host!
Lord R. Were it as numerous as loud fame reports,
An army knit like ours would pierce it through:
Brothers, that shrink not from each other's side,
And fond companions, fill our warlike files.
For his dear offspring, and the wife he loves,
The husband and the fearless father arm,
In vulgar breasts heroic ardour burns,

And the poor peasant mates his daring lord.

Lady R. Men's minds are tempered, like their swords,

for war.

Hence early graves; hence the lone widow's life,

And the sad mother's grief-embittered age.

Where is our gallant guest?

Lord R. Down in the vale

I left him, managing a fiery steed,

Whose stubbornness had foil'd the strength and skill
Of every rider.--But behold he comes,

In earnest conversation with Glenalvon.

Enter Glenalvon and Norval.

Glenalvon! with the lark arise; go forth,
And lead my troops that lie in yonder vale.
Private I travel to the royal camp.

Norval thou go'st with me. But say, young man,
Where didst thou learn so to discourse of war,
And in such terms as I o'erheard today?

War is no village science, nor its phrase

A language taught among the shepherd swains.
Norval. Small is the skill my lord delights to praise
In him he favours.--Hear from whence it came.
Beneath a mountain's brow the most remote

And inaccessible by shepherds trod,
In a deep cave, dug by no mortal hand,
A hermit liv'd; a melancholy man,

Who was the wonder of our wand'ring swains.
Austere and lonely, cruel to himself,

Did they report him; the cold earth his bed,
Water his drink, his food the shepherd's alms.
I went to see him; and my heart was touch'd
With reverence and with pity. Mild he spake,
And entering on discourse, such stories told,
As made me oft revisit his sad cell.

For he had been a soldier in his youth;
And fought in famous battles, when the peers
Of Europe, by the bold Godfredo led
Against the usurping Infidel, display'd
The cross of Christ, and won the Holy Land.
Pleas'd with my admiration, and the fire

His speech struck from me, the old man would shake
His years away, and act his young encounters;
Then, having show'd his wounds, he 'd sit him down,
And all the live-long day discourse of war.
To help my fancy, in the smooth green turf
He cut the figures of the marshall'd hosts;
Describ'd the motions, and explain'd the use
Of the deep column and the lengthen❜d line:
The square, the crescent, and the phalanx firm.
For all that Saracen or Christian knew
Of war's vast art, was to this hermit known.
Unhappy man!
Returning homewards by Messina's port,
Loaded with wealth and honors bravely won,
A rude and boisterous captain of the sea
Fasten'd a quarrel on him. Fierce they fought!
The stranger fell; and with his dying breath
Declar'd his name and lineage.

The soldier cried, my brother! O my brother!
They exchang'd forgiveness:

And happy, in my mind, was he that died;
For many deaths has the survivor suffer'd.

In the wild desert on a rock he sits,

Upon some nameless stream's untrodden banks,
And ruminates all day his dreadful fate.
At times, alas! nor in his perfect mind,
Holds dialogues with his lov'd brother's ghost;
And oft each night forsakes his sullen couch,
To make sad orisons for him he slew.

14

THE FOREST BY MIDNIGHT.

THIS is the place, the certre of the grove;
Here stands the oak, the monarch of the wood.
How sweet and solemn is this midnight scene!
The silver moon, unclouded, holds her way,
Through skies where I could count each little star.
The fanning west wind scarcely stirs the leaves.
The river, rushing o'er its pebbled bed,
Imposes silence with a stilly sound.

In such a place as this, at such an hour,
If ancestry in aught can be believed,
Descending spirits have convers'd with man,
And told the secrets of the world unknown.

STORY OF THE OLD MAN NORVAL.

SOME eighteen years ago, I rented land
Of brave Sir Malcolm, then Balarmo's lord;
But falling to decay, his servants seized
All that I had, and then turned me and mine,
(Four helpless infants and their weeping mother)
Out to the mercy of the winter winds.

A little hovel by the river's side

Received us: there hard labour, and the skill
In fishing, which was formerly my sport,
Supported life. Whilst thus we poorly lived,
One stormy night, as I remember well,
The wind and rain beat hard upon our roof:
Red came the river down, and loud and oft
The angry spirit of the water shrieked.
At the dead hour of night was heard the cry
Of one in jeopardy. I rose and ran
To where the circling eddy of a pool
Beneath the ford, us'd oft to bring within
My reach whatever floating thing the stream

Had caught. The voice was ceased; the person lost:
But looking sad and earnest on the waters,

By the moon's light I saw, whirl'd round and round, A basket; soon I drew it to the bank,

And nestled curious there an infant lay.—

Within the cradle where the infant lay

Was stow'd a mighty store of gold and jewels;
Tempted by which we did resolve to hide,
From all the world, this wonderful event,
And like a peasant breed the noble child.

That none might mark the change of our estate,

We left the country, travell'd to the north,

Bought flocks and herds, and gradually brought forth
Our secret wealth. But Heaven's all-seeing eye
Beheld our avarice, and smote us sore.
For one by one all our own children died,
And he, the stranger, sole remain'd the heir
Of what indeed was his. Fain then would I,
Who with a father's fondness lov'd the boy,
Have trusted him, now in the dawn of youth,
With his own secret; but my anxious wife,
Foreboding evil, never would consent.
Meanwhile the stripling grew in years and beauty;
And, as we oft observ'd, he bore himself,
Not as the offspring of our cottage blood;
For nature will break out; mild with the mild,
But with the froward he was fierce as fire,
And night and day he talked of war and arms.
I set myself against his warlike bent,
But all in vain.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

Born 1728-Died 1774.

GOLDSMITH'S father was a clergyman at Pallas, in Ireland, where the poet was born. He was educated at Dublin College, and afterwards studied the medical profession at the University of Edinburgh. His departure from this place was hastened on account of a debt contracted by becoming security for an acquaintance. He studied a year at Leyden, and then set out on foot to make the tour of Europe. After a variety of adventures, he returned to England in 1758, and for some years supported himself, though in comparative obscurity, by his prose writings. In 1765, the publication of The Traveller obtained for him a high poetical celebrity, with a circle of distinguished men of genius for his acquaintance and friends. From this period till his death, his personal history is that of his writings, which are numerous and well known. The Deserted Village was published in 1769, and the Vicar of Wakefield in 1767; his first comedy, The Goodnatured Man, in 1768, and his second, She Stoops to Conquer, in 1773. He died in his forty-sixth year.

His life and character are eccentric, but interesting. Generosity, carelessness, and imprudence, are the reigning features in his disposition. "There must have been something, however," says Campbell, (who has written an extremely beautiful sketch of his life and criticism of his poetry,) "with all his peculiarities, still endearing in his personal character.

Burke was known to recall his memory with tears of affection in his eyes. It cannot be believed that the better genius of his writings was always absent from his conversation. One may conceive graces of his spirit to have been drawn forth by Burke or Reynolds, which neither Johnson nor Garrick had the sensibility to appreciate."

Both the poetry and prose of Goldsmith are read with a more constant, steady, heartfelt, and quiet pleasure, than any other perhaps in the English language. In the former, he captivates the feelings with a power which is mild and gentle, but not less lasting and sure, than if he had been far more sublime in his design, and more magnificent and various in invention. Sweetness of fancy and tenderness of feeling are the peculiar features of his genius, and his pensive delicacy of thought is visible even in his humorous effusions. "His descriptions and sentiments all have the pure zest of nature." His expression is natural and idiomatic, yet in the highest degree select and refined. His manner is beautifully tender and playful, possésing likewise the easy, graceful union of unaffected simplicity with dignity and elegance.

He is chaste in his ornaments, and inimitably soft and sweet in the colouring of his language. His serene and contemplative sensibility, and his quiet enthusiasm for the joys of retired, rural, and domestic life, are mingled with philosophical reflection, and made to harmonize with dignified and manly sentiment. He delights the fancy and at the same time softens the heart and diffuses a purity over the moral feelings. His familiar pictures of the village life, enchant the imagination, and make us dwell fondly even on his most minute and simple recollections.

His delineations of character are original and exquisite. The Parish Schoolmaster and the Village Clergyman are portraits that have no rivals; and his humorous poem of Retaliation contains many delightful and characteristic touches. The national sketches in the Traveller are all admirable, and exhibit great power of observation in seizing on the most expressive features, and conveying the general likeness in a few easy, and gracefully concise, lines. The illustrations in this poem are eminently beautiful. It would scarcely be possible to point out a simile more sweet and appropriate than that of the child at the close of his character of the Swiss. His ballad of the Hermit is written in a style of pensive and gentle pathos, which is singularly touching; while the short description of the cheerful little fireside in the hermitage, around which the cricket chirrups, and the kitten tries its tricks, is artless and captivating. His versification has all the polished elegance without the monotomy of Pope, and it flows with a spontaneous, unstudied ease, such as no other poet has ever exhibited. There are no couplets which betray ess art, and are at the same time more perfect, than those of