Then O! our comforts be the same,

At evening's peaceful hour,

To shun the noisy paths of wealth and fame, And breathe our sorrows in this lonely bower.

But why, alas! to thee complain!
To thee-unconscious of my pain!

Soon shalt thou cease to mourn thy lot severe,
And hail the dawning of a happier year:

The genial warmth of joy-renewing Spring
Again shall plume thy shatter'd wing;
Again thy little heart shall transport prove,
Again shall flow thy notes responsive to thy
love.

But O! for me in vain may seasons roll,

Nought can dry up the fountain of my tears; Deploring still the comfort of my soul,

I count my sorrows by increasing years.

Tell me, thou syren Hope, deceiver, say,
Where is the promis'd period of my woes?
Full three long, lingering years have roll'd away,
And yet I weep, a stranger to repose:

O what delusion did thy tongue employ! 'That Emma's fatal pledge of love,

Her last bequest-with all a mother's care, The bitterness of sorrow should remove, Soften the horrors of despair,

And cheer a heart long lost to joy?"

How oft, when fondling in mine arms,
Gazing enraptur'd on its angel-face,

My soul the maze of Fate would vainly trace,
And burn with all a father's fond alarms!

EVENING ADDRESS TO A NIGHTINGALE.

21

And O! what flattering scenes had Fancy feign'd!
How did I rave of blessings yet in store!
Till every aching sense was sweetly pain'd,

And my full heart could bear, nor tongue could

utter more.-

'Just Heaven,' I cried--with recent hopes elate, 'Yet I will live-will live, though Emma's dead! So long bow'd down beneath the storms of Fate, Yet will I raise my woe-dejected head! My little Emma, now my all,

Will want a father's care,

Her looks, her wants, my rash resolves recall,
And for her sake the ills of life I'll bear;
And oft together we'll complain;

Complaint, the only bliss my soul can know ; From me my child shall learn the mournful strain, And prattle tales of woe.

And O! in that auspicious hour,

When Fate resigns her persecuting power, With duteous zeal her hand shall close,

No more to weep-my sorrow-streaming eyes, When Death gives Misery repose,

And opes a glorious passage to the skies.'

Vain thought! it must not be.-She too is dead-
The flattering scene is o'er,--

My hopes for ever-ever fled

And vengeance can no more——
Crush'd by misfortune-blasted by disease-
And none none left to bear a friendly part!
To meditate my welfare, health, or ease,
Or soothe the anguish of an aching heart!

Now all one gloomy scene, till welcome Death,
With lenient hand, (O falsely deem'd severe !
Shall kindly stop my grief-exhausted breath,
And dry up every tear!

Perhaps, obsequious to my will,

But ah! from my affections far remov❜d!
The last sad office strangers may fulfil,
As if I ne'er had been belov'd;
As if, unconscious of poetic fire,

I ne'er had touch'd the trembling lyre;
As if my niggard hand ne'er dealt relief,
Nor my heart melted at another's grief.

Yet while this weary life shall last,

While yet my tongue can form the' impassion'd strain,

In piteous accents shall the Muse complain,
And dwell with fond delay on blessings past;
For O! how grateful to a wounded heart
The tale of misery to impart!

From others' eyes bid artless sorrows flow,
And raise esteem upon the base of woe!
Ev'n he ', the noblest of the tuneful throng,
Shall deign my love-loru tale to hear,
Shall catch the soft contagion of my song,

And pay my pensive Muse the tribute of a tear!

Lord Lyttelton, who had highly applauded Shaw's Monody.

YE puny things, who self-important sit
The sovereign arbiters of monthly wit;
Who, gnatling-like, your stings around dispense,
And feed on excrements of sickly sense;
Ye gentle Critics, whom, by Fancy led,
My Pegasus has kick'd upon the head,
Who, zealous to decry the' injurious strain,
While Common-sense has bled at every vein;

I

1 In justification of the author's severity, the reader is desired to attend to the Critical Review on the first edition of this poem, where he will find, comprised in a very nar row compass, a most wonderful variety of nonsense, both literal and metaphorical; where the Race is ingeniously discovered to be an imitation of Pope's Dunciad. Now, the only circumstance which has the least reference to that

Bewilder'd wander on, with idiot-pride,
Without or wit or grammar for your guide;
Behold! again I blot the' envenom'd page,
Come, whet your tiny stings, exhaust your rage:
Here wreak your vengeance, here exert your skill,
Let blustering Kenrick 2 draw his raven's quill:
My claims to genius let each dunce disown,
And damn all strains more favour'd than their own.
Where Pegasus, who ambled at fifteen,
No longer sporting on the rural green,

Rampant breaks forth: now flies the peaceful plains,
And bounds, impetuous, heedless of the reins,
O'er earth's vast surface madly scours along,
Nor spares a critic, gaping in the throng;
Truth rides hehind 3, and prompts the wild career;
And, truth my guardian, what have I to fear?
Oh, Truth! thou sole director of my views,
Whom yet I love far dearer than the Muse!
Teach me myself in every sense to know,
Proof' 'gainst the' injurious shafts of friend or foe.
When smooth-tongued flatterers my ears assail,
May my firm soul disdain the fulsome tale!

poem, is the hero's tumbling into a bog, which is (as it is there acknowledged) an exact imitation of a passage in Homer, and was designed at the same time as a stroke of ridicule on one of the instances where that immortal bard has nodded. This the set of gentlemen had not eyes to see, and are therefore excusable. Those gentlemen certainly cannot help their having neither genius nor litera. ture; but blockheads may certainly help commencing critics.

Dr. Kenrick, a writer at perpetual warfare with his contemporaries.

3 Perhaps some half-witted critic may pertly inquire why should Truth ride behind, rather than before? Soft and fairly certainly every man has a right to ride foremost on his own Pegasus.