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And here too, the shepherd with his pipe is placed in the valé, ás by Beattie in the foregoing extract.

The return home of the ploughman in the twenty-second stanza, and the trudging of the shepherd with weary step, will scarcely leave the patronage of Gray for that of Orlando. The chattering swallows, if they have any discretion, will also abide with their old master; and the dusky twilight and silver moon, belong to every body.

In the twenty-third stanza, we have, as original poetry,

"The silver moon does rise,

"And sweetly sleeps upon the bank around,

"Her mellow light reclines on tree and bower.

This idea has particularly delighted our poet, for he repeats it in the twenty-sixth stanza,

"When sweet the moon-light on the green bank lay;"

and in the thirtieth stanza,

"Soft plays the moon-light on the checkered grass."

If I supposed our young poet had got as far as Shakspeare in his "rapt dreams," I should charge him with getting these lines from the immortal bard:

"How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank."

says Lorenzo to Jessica.

But as Orlando appears to me to have held closely to the Minstrel, in recounting his adventures, I rather refer the theft to that source- where we find

"The yellow moon-light sleeps on all the hills."

The same silence too pervades the scene in the Minstrel, which Orlando has chosen for his contemplations. The ghosts, fairies, &c. which are brought together to terrify the young Orlando, in the twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth stanzas, are of the same family with those which claimed a similar acquaintance with Edwin; the only difference is, that Orlando

caught them dancing, and Edwin at their revels. Edwin also

"Heard tales of old traditionary lore,"

the same, it is presumed, which were afterwards repeated to his successor Orlando; the visits too, near ocean's waves, were performed with equal punctuality and solemnity by both of them; and their prospects from the sounding shore, very much the same. The rustic dance described in the thirtieth, thirty-first and thirty-second stanzas, follows, even to tune and figure, the dance of former times, when Edwin ruled the song.

In the thirty-sixth stanza, our young poet has made a nibble at Collins, but not so as materially to injure that poet or benefit himself.

While the materials of Orlando are thus evidently gleaned from the Minstrel, it is admitted there is some skill displayed in putting them together. If the candour of the juvenile adventurer had been equal even to the humble merit now allowed him, his claims to indulgence would have been better founded. But he can hardly be pardoned for imagining that nobody had read the Minstrel but himself; or, that his plunder from a poem so universally read and admired, could pass without detection.

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JUSTICE.

March 10, 1811.

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.-THE MERRY WORLD.

STEVENS, who, though a very unfortunate, and a very imprudent man, was one of the most favoured in the Court of Comus; and, beyond all compare, the most original song writer of his age, has prefixed to one of his collections, the following Prologue, as he terms it:

"Through gloomy grove, along the lawn,

Or by the still brook's side,
When the day's sable shroud is drawn,

Then ghosts are said to glide.

"The paly moonshine's silvery gleams,
Seem dancing down the glade,
Mingling mid shadowy forms its beams,
Which scare the trembling maid.

"The traveller oft is apt to see,

Through twilight's dusky veil,

A giant, in each hedge row tree,
While phantoms fill the dale.

"So rambling readers may condemn
This book of medley rhimes,
Whose errors will appear to them,
A list of giant crimes.

"But why should critics carp at songs?
Or classic scales apply?
To them alone my book belongs,
Who'd rather laugh than cry.

"For neither pedant, nor for prude
These Sonnets took their birth,
But are dish'd up as pleasant food,
For Sons of Social Mirth."

The following voluble lines addressed to a lady, are justly attributed to the honourable R. W. Spencer, a man of rank and a man of fashion, yet neither so fastidious nor so dissipated, that he shuns the service of the Muses.

"Too late I staid, forgive the crime,

Unheeded flew the hours;

How noiseless falls the foot of Time,
That only treads on flowers!

"What eye with clear account remarks,
The ebbing of the glass,

When all its sands are diamond sparks,
Which dazzle as they pass?

"Oh! who, to sober measurement,

Time's happy swiftness brings,

When Birds of Paradise have lent

Their plumage for his wings?"

At different periods through the progress of this Journal, we have preserved many specimens of the ingenuity of the inimitable DIBDEN. The following excellent new song is so characteristical of a genuine British tar, that we fancy some of our readers will soon have it by heart.

Why what's that to you if my eyes I'm a wiping?

A tear is a pleasure d'ye see in its way,
'Tis nonsense for trifles, I own, to be piping;
But they that han't pity, why I pities they.
Says our Captain, says he, (I shall never forget it)

If of courage you'd know, lads, the true from the sham;
'Tis a furious lion, in battle, so let it,

But duty appeas'd, 'tis in mercy a lamb.

There's bustling Bob Bounce, for the old one not caring,
Helter skelter to work, pelt away, cut and drive;
Swearing, he, for his part, had no notion of sparing,
For as to a foe, why he'd eat him alive!

But when that he found a poor pris'ner, he'd wounded,
Who once sav'd his life, as near drowning he swam,
The lion was tam'd, and with pity confounded,
He cried over him all as one as a lamb.

That my friend Dick, or Tom, I would rescue from danger,
Or lay my life down for each lad in the mess,
Is nothing at all; 'tis the poor wounded stranger,

And the poorer, the more I should succour distress.
For, however their duty bold fars may delight in,
And peril defy as a bug-bear, or flam,

The lion may feel surly pleasure in fighting,

But feel mores by compassion, when turn'd to a lamb.

The heart and the eyes, you see, keep the same motion,
For though both shed their drops, 'tis all to the same end;
And thus 'tis that ev'ry tight lad of the ocean,

Sheds his blood for his country, his tears for his friend.
If my maxim's diseas'd, 'tis disease I shall die on;

You may snigger, and titter, I don't care a damn!

In me let the foe feel the paw of a lion;

But, the battle once ended-the heart of a lamb.

1

I have searched in vain for the name of the quaint inditer of the subsequent stanzas, and am persuaded that he either timidly hid himself, or was lost in the dreary shades of dull obscurity. Though his name is concealed, his merit is very conspicuous in this composition, which though written in a strain of peculiar simplicity, has for its vital principle, pure and practical philosophy.

My mind to me a kingdom is,
Such perfect joy therein I find,
As far exceeds all earthly bliss,

That God or nature hath assign'd:

Though much I want, that most would have,

Yet still my mind forbids to crave.

"Content to liye, this is my stay;

I seek no more than may suffice:

I press to bear no haughty sway,

Look, what I lack, MY MIND SUPPLIES.
Lo! thus 1 triumph like a king,

Content with what my mind doth bring.

"I see how plenty surfeits oft,

And hasty climbers soonest fall,

I see that such as sit aloft,

Mishap doth threaten most of all:
These get with toil, and keep with fear,
Such cares my mind could never bear.

"No princely pomp, nor wealthy store,
No force to win a victory,

No wily wit to salve a sore,

No shape to win a lover's eye.
To none of these I yield as thrall,

For why? my mind despiseth all.

"Some have too much, yet still they crave;
I little have, yet seek for more,
They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store:

They poor, I rich; they beg, I give,

They lack, I lend; they pine, I live.

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