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All, as they frowned, unwritten records bore
Of gallant feats and festivals of yore.

But why the tale prolong?-His only child,
His darling JULIA on the stranger smiled.
Her little arts a fretful sire to please,
Her gentle gaiety, and native ease

Had won his soul; and rapturous Fancy shed
Her golden lights, and tints of rosy red."

But ah! few days had passed, ere the bright vision fled!

When evening tinged the lake's ethereal blue,
And her deep shades irregularly threw ;
Their shifting sail dropt gently from the cove,
Down by St. Herbert's consecrated grove,
Whence erst the chanted hymn, the tapered rite
Amused the fisher's solitary night;

And still the mitred window, richly wreathed,
A sacred calm thro' the brown foliage breathed.
The wild deer, starting thro' the silent glade,
With fearful gaze their various course surveyed.
High hung in air the hoary goat reclined,

His streaming beard the sport of every wind;
And, while the coot her jet-wing loved to lave,
Rocked on the bosom of the sleepless wave;
The eagle rushed from Skiddaw's purple crest,
A cloud still brooding o'er her giant-nest.

And now the moon had dimmed with dewy ray

The few fine flushes of departing day.
O'er the wide water's deep serene she hung,
And her broad lights on every mountain flung;
When lo! a sudden blast the vessel blew,
And to the surge consigned the little crew.
All, all escaped--but ere the lover bore
His faint and faded JULIA to the shore,
Her sense had fled!-Exhausted by the storm,
A fatal trance hung o'er her pallid form;
Her closing eye a trembling lustre fired;
'Twas life's last spark-it fluttered and expired!
The father strewed his white hairs in the wind,
Called on his child-nor lingered long behind:
And FLORIO lived to see the willow wave,
With many an evening-whisper, o'er their grave.
Yes, FLORIO lived-and, still of each possessed,
The father cherished, and the maid caressed!

For ever would the fond enthusiast rove,
With JULIA's spirit, thro' the shadowy grove;
Gaze with delight on every scene she planned,
Kiss every floweret planted by her hand.

Ah! still he traced her steps along the glade,
When hazy hues and glimmering lights betrayed
Half-viewless forms; still listened as the breeze
Heaved its deep sobs among the aged trees;
And at each pause her melting accents caught,
In sweet delirium of romantic thought!
Dear was the grot that shunned the blaze of day;
She gave its spars to shoot a trembling ray.
The spring, that bubbled from its inmost cell,
Murmured of JULIA'S virtues as it fell;
And o'er the dripping moss, the fretted stone,
In FLORIO's ear breathed language not its own.
Her charm around the enchantress MEMORY
threw,

A charm that soothes the mind, and sweetens too!
But is Her Magic only felt below?
Say, thro' what brighter realms she bids it flow;
To what pure beings, in a nobler sphere,
She yields delight but faintly imaged here:
All that till now their rapt researches knew,
Not called in slow succession to review;

But, as a landscape meets the eye of day, At once presented to their glad survey!

Each scene of bliss revealed, since chaos fled, And dawning light its dazzling glories spread; Each chain of wonders that sublimely glowed, Since first Creation's choral anthem flowed; Each ready flight, at Mercy's call divine, To distant worlds that undiscovered shine; Full on her tablet flings its living rays, And all, combined, with blest effulgence blaze. There thy bright train, immortal Friendship, soar; No more to part, to mingle tears no more! And, as the softening hand of Time endears The joys and sorrows of our infant-years, So there the soul, released from human strife, Smiles at the little cares and ills of life; Its lights and shades, its sunshine and its showers; As at a dream that charmed her vacant hours! Oft may the spirits of the dead descend. To watch the silent slumbers of a friend; To hover round his evening-walk unseen, And hold sweet converse on the dusky green; To hail the spot where first their friendship grew, And heaven and nature opened to their view! Oft, when he trims his cheerful hearth, and sees A smiling circle emulous to please; There may these gentle guests delight to dwell, And bless the scene they loved in life so well!

Oh thou! with whom my heart was wont to share

From Reason's dawn each pleasure and each care;
With whom, alas! I fondly hoped to know
The humble walks of happiness below;
If thy blest nature now unites above
An angel's pity with a brother's love,
Still o'er my life preserve thy mild controul,
Correct my views, and elevate my soul;
Grant me thy peace and purity of mind,
Devout yet cheerful, active yet resigned;
Grant me, like thee, whose heart knew no disguise,
Whose blameless wishes never aimed to rise,
To meet the changes Time and Chance present,`
With modest dignity and calm content.
When thy last breath, ere Nature sunk to rest,
Thy meek submission to thy God expressed;
When thy last look, ere thought and feeling fled,
A mingled gleam of hope and triumph shed;
What to thy soul its glad assurance gave,
Its hope in death, its triumph o'er the grave?
The sweet Remembrance of unblemished youth,
The still inspiring voice of Innocence and Truth

Hail, MEMORY, hail! in thy exhaustless mine
From age to age unnumbered treasures shine!
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And Place and Time are subject to thy sway !
Thy pleasures most we feel, when most alone;
The only pleasures we can call our own.
Lighter than air, Hope's summer-visions die,
If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky;
If but a beam of sober Reason play,
Lo, Fancy's fairy frost-work melts away!
But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power,
Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour?
These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight,
Pour round her path a stream of living light;
And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest,
Where Virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest!

NOTES.

PART I.

Page 2, col. 1, line 31.

How oft, when purple evening tinged the west, VIRGIL, in one of his Eclogues, describes a romantic attachment as conceived in such circumstances; and the description is so true to nature, that we must surely be indebted for it to some early recollection. "You were little when I first saw you. You were with your mother gathering fruit in our orchard, and I was your guide. I was just entering my thirteenth year, and just able to reach the boughs from the ground."

So also Zappi, an Italian Poet of the last Century: "When I used to measure myself with my goat and my goat was the tallest, even then I loved Clori."

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myself, I live in a little town; and I chuse to live there, lest it should become still less."-Vit. Demosth.

Page 3, col. 1, line 53.

For this young FOSCARI, &c.

He was suspected of murder, and at Venice suspicion was good evidence. Neither the interest of the Doge, his father, nor the intrepidity of conscious innocence, which he exhibited in the dungeon and on the rack, could procure his acquittal. He was banished to the island of Candia for life.

But here his resolution failed him. At such a distance from home he could not live; and, as it was a criminal offence to solicit the intercession of any foreign prince, in a fit of despair he addressed a letter to the Duke of Milan, and intrusted it to a wretch whose perfidy, he knew, would occasion his being remanded a prisoner to Venice.

Page 3, col. 1, line 61.

And hence the charm historic scenes impart; "Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."-JOHNSON.

Page 3, col. 1, line 66.

And watch and weep in ELOISA's cell. The Paraclete, founded by Abelard, in Champagne.

Page 3, col. 1, line 67.

'Twas ever thus. Young AMMON, when he sought Alexander, when he crossed the Hellespont, was in the twenty-second year of his age; and with what feelings must the Scholar of Aristotle have approached the ground described by Homer in that Poem which had been his delight from his childhood, and which records the achievements of Him from whom he claimed his descent !

It was his fancy, if we may believe tradition, to take the tiller from Menatius, and be himself the steersman during the passage. It was his fancy also to be the first to land, and to land full-armed.-ARRIAN, i. 11.

Page 3, col. 2, line 5.

As now at VIRGIL's tomb

Vows and pilgrimages are not peculiar to the religious enthusiast. Silius Italicus performed annual ceremonies on the mountain of Posilipo; and it was there that Boccaccio, quasi da un divino estro inspirato, resolved to dedicate his life to the Muses.

Page 3, col. 2, line 7.

So TULLY paused, amid the wrecks of Time, When Cicero was quæstor in Sicily, he discovered the tomb of Archimedes by its mathematical inscription.Tusc. Quæst. v. 3.

Page 3, col. 2, line 21.

Say why the pensive widow loves to weep, The influence of the associating principle is finely exemplified in the faithful Penelope, when she sheds tears over the bow of Ulysses.-Od. xxi. 55.

Page 3, col. 2, line 37.

If chance he hears the song so sweetly wild The celebrated Ranz des Vaches; "cet air si chéri des Suisses qu'il fut défendu sous peine de mort de le jouer dans leurs troupes, parce qu'il faisoit fondre en larmes, déserter ou mourir ceux qui l'entendoient, tant il excitoit en eux l'ardent désir de revoir leur pays."-ROUSSEAU.

The maladie de pays is as old as the human heart. JUVENAL'S little cup-bearer

Suspirat longo non visam tempore matrem, Et casulam, et notos tristis desiderat hædos. And the Argive in the heat of battle

Dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos.

Nor is it extinguished by any injuries, however cruel they may be. Ludlow, write as he would over his door at Vevey *, was still anxious to return home; and how striking is the testimony of Camillus, as it is recorded by Livy! "Equidem fatebor vobis," says he in his speech to the Roman people, etsi minus injuriæ vestræ quam meæ calamitatis meminisse juvat; quum abessem, quotiescunque patria in mentem veniret, hæc omnia occurrebant, colles, campique, et Tiberis, et assueta oculis regio, et hoc cœlum, sub quo natus educatusque essem. vos, Quirites, nunc moveant potius caritate sua, ut maneatis in sede vestra, quam postea quum reliqueritis ea, macerent desiderio."-V. 54.

Page 3, col. 2, line 42.

Quæ

Say why VESPASIAN loved his Sabine farm ; This emperor, according to Suetonius, constantly passed the summer in a small villa near Reate, where he was born, and to which he would never add any embellishment; ne quid scilicet oculorum consuetudini deperiret.--SUET. in Vit. Vesp. cap. ii.

A similar instance occurs in the life of the venerable Pertinax, as related by J. Capitolinus. "Posteaquam in Liguriam venit, multis agris coemptis, tabernam paternam, manente formâ priore, infinitis ædificiis circumdedit."Hist. August. 54.

And it is said of Cardinal Richelieu, that, when he built his magnificent palace on the site of the old family chateau at Richelieu, he sacrificed its symmetry to preserve the room in which he was born.-Mém. de Mlle. de Montpensier, i. 27.

An attachment of this nature is generally the characteristic of a benevolent mind; and a long acquaintance with the world cannot always extinguish it.

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To a friend," says John, Duke of Buckingham, "I will expose my weakness: I am oftener missing a pretty gallery in the old house I pulled down, than pleased with a saloon which I built in its stead, though a thousand times better in all respects."-See his Letter to the D. of Sh.

This is the language of the heart, and will remind the reader of that good-humoured remark in one of Pope's letters" I should. hardly care to have an old post pulled up, that I remembered ever since I was a child."

The Author of Telemachus has illustrated this subject, with equal fancy and feeling, in the story of Alibée Persan.

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Sweet bird! thy truth shall Harlem's walls attest, During the siege of Harlem, when that city was reduced to the last extremity, and on the point of opening its gates to a base and barbarous enemy, a design was formed to relieve it; and the intelligence was conveyed to the citizens by a letter which was tied under the wing of a pigeon.— THUANUS, lv. 5.

The same messenger was employed at the siege of Mutina, as we are informed by the elder Pliny.-Nat. Hist. x. 37.

Page 4, col 1, line 40. Hark! the bee, &c.

This little animal, from the extreme convexity of her eye, cannot see many inches before her.

PART II.

Page 4, col. 2, line 11.

They in their glorious course

TRUE Glory, says one of the Ancients, is to be acquired by doing what deserves to be written, and writing what deserves to be read; and by making the world the happier and the better for our having lived in it.

Page 4, col. 2, line 15.

These still exist, &c.

There is a future Existence even in this world, an Existence in the hearts and minds of those who shall live after us. It is in reserve for every man, however obscure; and his portion, if he is diligent, must be equal to his desires. For in whose remembrance can we wish to hold a place, but such as know, and are known by us? These are within the sphere of our influence, and among these and their descendants we may live for evermore.

It is a state of rewards and punishments; and, like that revealed to us in the Gospel, has the happiest influence on cur lives. The latter excites us to gain the favour of GOD, the former to gain the love and esteem of wise and good men; and both lead to the same end; for, in framing our conceptions of the DEITY, we only ascribe to Him exalted degrees of Wisdom and Goodness.

Page 5, col. 2, line 1.

Yet still how sweet the soothings of his art!

The astronomer chalking his figures on the wall, in Hogarth's view of Bedlam, is an admirable exemplification of this idea.-See the RAKE'S PROGRESS, plate 8.

Page 5, col. 2, line 21.

Turns but to start, and gazes but to sigh!

The following stanzas are said to have been written on a blank leaf of this Poem. They present so affecting a reverse of the picture, that I cannot resist the opportunity of introducing them here.

Pleasures of Memory!--oh! supremely blest,

And justly proud beyond a Poet's praise;
If the pure confines of thy tranquil breast
Contain, indeed, the subject of thy lays!
By me how envied!--for to me,
The herald still of misery,
Memory makes her influence known
By sighs, and tears, and grief alone:

I greet her as the fiend, to whom belong

The vulture's ravening beak, the raven's funeral song.
She tells of time mispent, of comfort lost,
Of fair occasions gone for ever by;

Of hopes too fondly nursed, too rudely crossed,
Of many a cause to wish, yet fear to die;
For what, except the instinctive fear
Lest she survive, detains me here,
When "all the life of life" is fled ?-
What, but the deep inherent dread,
Lest she beyond the grave resume her reign,
And realise the hell that priests and beldams feign?
Page 5, col. 2, line 60.

Hast thou thro' Eden's wild-wood vales pursued On the road-side between Penrith and Appleby there stands a small pillar with this inscription:

"This pillar was erected in the year 1656, by Ann, Countess Dowager of Pembroke, &c. for a memorial of her last parting, in this place, with her good and pious mother, Margaret, Countess Dowager of Cumberland, on the 2nd of April, 1616; in memory whereof she hath left an annuity of 41. to be distributed to the poor of the parish of Brougham, every 2nd day of April for ever, upon the stone-table placed hard by. Laus Deo!'

The Eden is the principal river of Cumberland, and rises in the wildest part of Westmoreland.

Page 6, col. 1, line 2.

O'er his dead son the gallant ORMOND sighed.

"I would not exchange my dead son," said he, " for any living son in Christendom."-HUME.

The same sentiment is inscribed on an urn at the Leasowes. "Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse! "

Page 7, col. 1, line 9.

Down by St. Herbert's consecrated grove

A small island covered with trees, among which were formerly the ruins of a religious house.

Page 7, col. 1, line 26.

When lo! a sudden blast the vessel blew,

In a mountain-lake the agitations are often violent and momentary. The winds blow in gusts and eddies; and the water no sooner swells, than it subsides.-See BOURN's Hist. of Westmoreland.

Page 7, col. 1, line 60.

To what pure beings, in a nobler sphere, The several degrees of angels may probably have larger views, and some of them be endowed with capacities able to retain together, and constantly set before them as in one picture, all their past knowledge at once.-LOCKE.

ARGUMENT.

HUMAN LIFE.

Introduction. Ringing of Bells in a neighbouring Village on the Birth of an Heir. - General Reflections on Human Life.-The Subject proposed.-Childhood. Youth.-Manhood.-Love.- Marriage.-Domestic Happi

ness and Affliction.-War.-Peace. - Civil Dissension.

Retirement from active Life. - Old Age and its Enjoy

ments.-Conclusion.

THE lark has sung his carol in the sky; The bees have hummed their noon-tide harmony. Still in the vale the village-bells ring round, Still in Llewellyn-hall the jests resound: For now the caudle-cup is circling there, Now, glad at heart, the gossips breathe their prayer, And, crowding, stop the cradle to admire The babe, the sleeping image of his sire.

[hail

A few short years-and then these sounds shall The day again, and gladness fill the vale; So soon the child a youth, the youth a man, Eager to run the race his fathers ran. Then the huge ox shall yield the broad sir-loin; The ale, now brewed, in floods of amber shine: And, basking in the chimney's ample blaze, 'Mid many a tale told of his boyish days, The nurse shall cry, of all her ills beguiled, "'Twas on these knees he sate so oft and smiled."

And soon again shall music swell the breeze; Soon, issuing forth, shall glitter through the trees Vestures of nuptial white; and hymns be sung, And violets scattered round; and old and young, In every cottage-porch with garlands green, Stand still to gaze, and, gazing, bless the scene; While, her dark eyes declining, by his side Moves in her virgin-veil the gentle bride.

And once, alas, nor in a distant hour, Another voice shall come from yonder tower; When in dim chambers long black weeds are

seen,

And weepings heard where only joy has been:
When by his children borne, and from his door
Slowly departing to return no more,
He rests in holy earth with them that went before.
And such is Human Life; so gliding on,
It glimmers like a meteor, and is gone!
Yet is the tale, brief though it be, as strange,
As full, methinks, of wild and wondrous change,
As any that the wandering tribes require,
Stretched in the desert round their evening-
fire;

As any sung of old in hall or bower

To minstrel-harps at midnight's witching hour! Born in a trance, we wake, observe, inquire; And the green earth, the azure sky admire.

Of Elfin-size-for ever as we run,
We cast a longer shadow in the sun!

And now a charm, and now a grace is won!
We grow in stature, and in wisdom too!
And, as new scenes, new objects rise to view,
Think nothing done while aught remains to do.
Yet, all forgot, how oft the eye-lids close,
And from the slack hand drops the gathered rose!
How oft, as dead, on the warm turf we lie,
While many an emmet comes with curious eye;
And on her nest the watchful wren sits by!
Nor do we speak or move, or hear or see;
So like what once we were, and once again shall be !
And say, how soon, where, blithe as innocent,
The boy at sun-rise carolled as he went,
An aged pilgrim on his staff shall lean,
Tracing in vain the footsteps o'er the green;
The man himself how altered, not the scene!
Now journeying home with nothing but the name;
Way-worn and spent, another and the same!

No eye observes the growth or the decay.
To-day we look as we did yesterday;
And we shall look to-morrow as to-day.
Yet while the loveliest smiles, her locks grow grey!
And in her glass could she but see the face
She'll see so soon amid another race,
How would she shrink!-Returning from afar,
After some years of travel, some of war,
Within his gate Ulysses stood unknown
Before a wife, a father, and a son!

And such is Human Life, the general theme.
Ah, what at best, what but a longer dream?
Though with such wild romantic wanderings
fraught,

Such forms in Fancy's richest colouring wrought,
That, like the visions of a love-sick brain,
Who would not sleep and dream them o'er again?
Our pathway leads but to a precipice;
And all must follow, fearful as it is!
From the first step 'tis known; but-No delay!
On, 'tis decreed. We tremble and obey.
A thousand ills beset us as we go.

"Still, could I shun the fatal gulf”—Ah, no,
'Tis all in vain-the inexorable Law!
Nearer and nearer to the brink we draw.
Verdure springs up; and fruits and flowers invite,
And groves and fountains-all things that delight.
"Oh, I would stop, and linger if I might!"
We fly; no resting for the foot we find ;
All dark before, all desolate behind!
At length the brink appears-but one step more!
We faint-On, on !—we falter-and 'tis o'er!

Yet here high passions, high desires unfold,
Prompting to noblest deeds; here links of gold
Bind soul to soul; and thoughts divine inspire
A thirst unquenchable, a holy fire
That will not, cannot but with life expire!

Now, seraph-winged, among the stars we soar ;
Now distant ages, like a day, explore,
And judge the act, the actor now no more;
Or, in a thankless hour condemned to live,
From others claim what these refuse to give,
And dart, like MILTON, an unerring eye
Through the dim curtains of Futurity.

Now in Thermopyla remain to share
Death-nor look back, nor turn a footstep there,
Leaving his story to the birds of air;
And now like Pylades (in Heaven they write
Names such as his in characters of light)
Long with his friend in generous enmity,
Pleading, insisting in his place to die!

Do what he will, he cannot realize
Half he conceives the glorious vision flies.
Go where he may, he cannot hope to find
The truth, the beauty pictured in his mind.
But if by chance an object strike the sense,
The faintest shadow of that Excellence,
Passions, that slept, are stirring in his frame;
Thoughts undefined, feelings without a name !
And some, not here called forth, may slumber on
Till this vain pageant of a world is gone;
Lying too deep for things that perish here,
Waiting for life-but in a nobler sphere!

Look where he comes! Rejoicing in his birth,
Awhile he moves as in a heaven on earth!
Sun, moon, and stars-the land, the sea, the sky
To him shine out as in a galaxy!

But soon 'tis past-the light has died away!
With him it came (it was not of the day)
And he himself diffused it, like the stone
That sheds awhile a lustre all its own,
Making night beautiful. 'Tis past, 'tis gone,
And in his darkness as he journeys on,
Nothing revives him but the blessed ray
That now breaks in, nor ever knows decay,
Sent from a better world to light him on his way.
How great the Mystery! Let others sing
The circling Year, the promise of the Spring,
The Summer's glory, and the rich repose
Of Autumn, and the Winter's silvery snows.
Man through the changing scene let me pursue,
Himself how wondrous in his changes too!
Not Man, the sullen savage in his den;
But Man called forth in fellowship with men ;
Schooled and trained up to Wisdom from his birth;
God's noblest work-His image upon earth!

The day arrives, the moment wished and feared;
The child is born, by many a pang endeared.
And now the mother's ear has caught his cry;
Oh grant the cherub to her asking eye!
He comes she clasps him. To her bosom pressed,
He drinks the balm of life, and drops to rest.

Her by her smile how soon the Stranger knows;
How soon by his the glad discovery shows!
As to her lips she lifts the lovely boy,
What answering looks of sympathy and joy!
He walks, he speaks. In many a broken word
His wants, his wishes, and his griefs are heard.
And ever, ever to her lap he flies,

When rosy Sleep comes on with sweet surprise.
Locked in her arms, his arms across her flung,
(That name most dear for ever on his tongue)
As with soft accents round her neck he clings,
And, cheek to cheek, her lulling song she sings,
How blest to feel the beatings of his heart,
Breathe his sweet breath, and kiss for kiss impart;
Watch o'er his slumbers like the brooding dove,

Wealth, Pleasure, Ease, all thought of self And, if she can, exhaust a mother's love!

resigned,

What will not Man encounter for Mankind?

Behold him now unbar the prison-door,

And, lifting Guilt, Contagion from the floor,

To Peace and Health, and Light and Life restore;

But soon a nobler task demands her care.
Apart she joins his little hands in prayer,
Telling of Him who sees in secret there!-
And now the volume on her knee has caught
His wandering eye-now many a written thought

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