Eliza's name along the camp he calls,
'Eliza' echoes through the canvass walls;
Quick through the murmuring gloom his footsteps
tread,

O'er groaning heaps, the dying and the dead,
Vault o'er the plain, and in the tangled wood,
Lo! dead Eliza weltering in her blood!

Soon hears his listening son the welcome sounds,
With open arms and sparkling eye he bounds:
'Speak low,' he cries, and gives his little hand,
'Eliza sleeps upon the dew-cold sand;'
Poor weeping babe with bloody fingers pressed,
And tried with pouting lips her milkless breast;
'Alas! we both with cold and hunger quake-
Why do you weep ?-Mamma will soon awake.'
'She'll wake no more!' the hapless mourner cried,
Upturned his eyes, and clasped his hands, and
sighed;

Stretched on the ground, a while entranced he lay,
And pressed warm kisses on the lifeless clay;
And then upsprung with wild convulsive start,
And all the father kindled in his heart;
'Oh heavens! he cried, 'my first rash vow forgive;
These bind to earth, for these I pray to live!'
Round his chill babes he wrapped his crimson vest,
And clasped them sobbing to his aching breast.*

[Philanthropy-Mr Howard.]

[From the Loves of the Plants."]

And now, philanthropy! thy rays divine
Dart round the globe from Zembla to the line;
O'er each dark prison plays the cheering light,
Like northern lustres o'er the vault of night.
From realm to realm, with cross or crescent crowned,
Where'er mankind and misery are found.
O'er burning sands, deep waves, or wilds of snow,
Thy Howard journeying seeks the house of wo.
Down many a winding step to dungeons dank,
Where anguish wails aloud, and fetters clank;
To caves bestrewed with many a mouldering bone,
And cells whose echoes only learn to groan;
Where no kind bars a whispering friend disclose,
No sunbeam enters, and no zephyr blows,
He treads, unemulous of fame or wealth,
Profuse of toil, and prodigal of health.
With soft assuasive eloquence expands
Power's rigid heart, and opes his clenching hands;
Leads stern-eyed Justice to the dark domains,
If not to sever, to relax the chains;

Or guides awakened mercy through the gloom,
And shows the prison, sister to the tomb!
Gives to her babes the self-devoted wife,
To her fond husband liberty and life!
The spirits of the good, who bend from high
Wide o'er these earthly scenes their partial eye,
When first arrayed in Virtue's purest robe,
They saw her Howard traversing the globe;
Saw round his brows her sun-like glory blaze
In arrowy circles of unwearied rays;
Mistook a mortal for an angel guest,
And asked what seraph foot the earth impressed.
Onward he moves! Disease and Death retire,
And murmuring demons hate him and admire!

*Those who have the opportunity may compare this death scene (much to the advantage of the living author) with that of Gertrude of Wyoming, which may have been suggested, very remotely and quite unconsciously, by Darwin's Eliza.

Sir

Walter Scott excels in painting battle-pieces, as overseen by some interested spectator. Eliza at Minden is circumstanced so nearly like Clara at Flodden, that the mighty Minstrel of the North may possibly have caught the idea of the latter from the Lichfield Botanist; but oh, how has he triumphed Montgomery's Lectures on Poetry.

60

Song to May. [From the same.]

Born in yon blaze of orient sky,

Sweet May! thy radiant form unfold; Unclose thy blue voluptuous eye,

And wave thy shadowy locks of gold.
For thee the fragrant zephyrs blow,
For thee descends the sunny shower;
The rills in softer murmurs flow,

And brighter blossoms gem the bower.
Light graces decked in flowery wreaths

And tiptoe joys their hands combine; And Love his sweet contagion breathes,

And, laughing, dances round thy shrine. Warm with new life, the glittering throng On quivering fin and rustling wing, Delighted join their votive song,

And hail thee Goddess of the Spring!

Song to Echo.
[From the same.]

I.

Sweet Echo! sleeps thy vocal shell, Where this high arch o'erhangs the dell ; While Tweed, with sun-reflecting streams, Chequers thy rocks with dancing beams?

II.

Here may no clamours harsh intrude, No brawling hound or clarion rude; Here no fell beast of midnight prowl, And teach thy tortured cliffs to howl.

III.

Be thine to pour these vales along
Some artless shepherd's evening song;
While night's sweet bird from yon high spray
Responsive listens to his lay.

IV.

And if, like me, some love-lorn maid Should sing her sorrows to thy shade, Oh! sooth her breast, ye rocks around, With softest sympathy of sound.

MRS CHARLOTTE SMITH.

This lady (whose admirable prose fictions will afterwards be noticed) was the daughter of Mr Turner of Stoke House, in Surrey, and was born on the 4th of May 1749. She was remarkable for precocity of talents, and for a lively playful humour that showed itself in conversation, and in compositions both in prose and verse. Being early deprived of her mother, she was carelessly though expensively educated, and introduced into society at a very early age. Her father having decided on a second marriage, the friends of the young and admired poetess endeavoured to establish her in life, and she was induced to accept the hand of Mr Smith, the son and partner of a rich West India merchant. The husband was twenty-one years of age, and his wife fifteen! This rash union was productive of mutual discontent and misery. Mr Smith was careless and extravagant, business was neglected, and his father dying, left a will so complicated and voluminous that no two lawyers understood it in the same sense. Lawsuits and embarrassments were therefore the portion of this ill-starred pair for all their after-lives. Mr Smith was ultimately forced to sell the greater

part of his property, after he had been thrown into prison, and his faithful wife had shared with him the misery and discomfort of his confinement. A numerous family also gathered around them, to add to their solicitude and difficulties. In 1782 Mrs

ith published a volume of sonnets, irregular in structure, but marked by poetical feeling and expression. They were favourably received by the public, and at length passed through no less than eleven editions, besides being translated into French and Italian. After an unhappy union of twentythree years, Mrs Smith separated from her husband, and, taking a cottage near Chichester, applied herself to her literary occupations with cheerful assiduity, supplying to her children the duties of both parents. In eight months she completed her novel of Emmeline, published in 1788. In the following year appeared another novel from her pen, entitled Ethelinde; and in 1791 a third under the name of Celestina. She imbibed the opinions of the French Revolution, and embodied them in a romance entitled Desmond. This work arrayed against her many of her friends and readers, but she regained the public favour by her tale, the Old Manor House, which is the best of her novels. Part of this work was written at Eartham, the residence of Hayley, during the period of Cowper's visit to that poetical retreat. 'It was delightful,' says Hayley, to hear her read what she had just written, for she read, as she wrote, with simplicity and grace.' Cowper was also astonished at the rapidity and excellence of her composition. Mrs Smith continued her literary labours amidst private and family distress. She wrote a valuable little compendium for children, under the title of Conversations; A History of British Birds; a descriptive poem on Beachy Head, &c. The delays in the settlement of her property, which had been an endless source of vexation and anxiety to one possessing all the susceptibility and ardour of the poetical temperament, were adjusted by a compromise; but Mrs Smith had sunk into ill health. She died at Tilford, near Farnham, on the 28th of October 1806. The poetry of Mrs Smith is elegant and sentimental, and generally of a pathetic cast. She wrote as if melancholy had marked her for her own.' The keen satire and

•

observation evinced in her novels do not appear in her verse, but the same powers of description are displayed. Her sketches of English scenery are true and pleasing. But while we allow,' says Sir Walter Scott, high praise to the sweet and sad effusions of Mrs Smith's muse, we cannot admit that by these alone she could ever have risen to the height of eminence which we are disposed to claim for her as Authoress of her prose narratives.'

Flora's Horologe.

In every copse and sheltered dell,

Unveiled to the observant eye, Are faithful monitors who tell

How pass the hours and seasons by. The green-robed children of the spring

Will mark the periods as they pass, Mingle with leaves Time's feathered wing, And bind with flowers his silent glass. Mark where transparent waters glide,

Soft flowing o'er their tranquil bed;
There, cradled on the dimpling tide,
Nymphæa rests her lovely head.
But conscious of the earliest beam,

She rises from her humid nest,
And sees, reflected in the stream,
The virgin whiteness of her breast.

Till the bright day-star to the west
Declines, in ocean's surge to lave;
Then, folded in her modest vest,
She slumbers on the rocking wave.
See Hieracium's various tribe,

Of plumy seed and radiate flowers,
The course of Time their blooms describe,
And wake or sleep, appointed hours.
Broad o'er its imbricated cup

The goatsbeard spreads its golden rays, But shuts its cautious petals up,

Retreating from the noontide blaze. Pale as a pensive cloistered nun,

The Bethlem star her face unveils, When o'er the mountain peers the sun, But shades it from the vesper gales. Among the loose and arid sands

The humble arenaria creeps;
Slowly the purple star expands,

But soon within its calyx sleeps.
And those small bells so lightly rayed
With young Aurora's rosy hue,
Are to the noontide sun displayed,

But shut their plaits against the dew.
On upland slopes the shepherds mark
The hour when, as the dial true,
Cichorium to the towering lark

•

Lifts her soft eyes serenely blue.
And thou, Wee crimson tipped flower,'
Gatherest thy fringed mantle round
Thy bosom at the closing hour,

When night-drops bathe the turfy ground. Unlike silene, who declines

The garish noontide's blazing light;
But when the evening crescent shines,

Gives all her sweetness to the night.
Thus in each flower and simple bell,
That in our path betrodden lie,
Are sweet remembrancers who tell
How fast their winged moments fly.

Sonnets.

On the Departure of the Nightingale.

Sweet poet of the woods, a long adieu!
Farewell soft minstrel of the early year!
Ah! 'twill be long ere thou shalt sing anew,

And pour thy music on the night's dull ear.
Whether on spring thy wandering flights await,
Or whether silent in our groves you dwell,
The pensive muse shall own thee for her mate,

And still protect the song she loves so well. With cautious step the love-lorn youth shall glide Through the lone brake that shades thy mossy nest; And shepherd girls from eyes profane shall hide The gentle bird who sings of pity best: For still thy voice shall soft affections move, And still be dear to sorrow and to love!

Are the fond visions of thy early day, Till tyrant passion and corrosive care

Bid all thy fairy colours fade away! Another May new buds and flowers shall bring; Ah! why has happiness no second Spring

Auld Robin Forbes. And auld Robin Forbes hes gien tem a dance, I pat on my speckets to see them aw prance; I thout o' the days when I was but fifteen, And skipp'd wi' the best upon Forbes's green. Of aw things that is I think thout is meast queer, It brings that that's by-past and sets it down here; I see Willy as plain as I dui this bit leace, When he tuik his cwoat lappet and deeghted his feace. The lasses aw wondered what Willy cud see In yen that was dark and hard featured leyke me; And they wondered ay mair when they talked o' my wit,

And slily telt Willy that cudn't be it.
But Willy he laughed, and he meade me his weyfe,
And whea was mair happy thro' aw his lang leyfe?
It's e'en my great comfort, now Willy is geane,
That he offen said-nea pleace was leyke his awn
heame !

ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD, the daughter of Dr John Aikin, was born at Kibworth Harcourt, in Leicestershire, in 1743. Her father at this time kept a seminary for the education of boys, and Anna received the same instruction, being early initiated into a knowledge of classical literature. In 1758 Dr Aikin undertaking the office of classical tutor in a dissenting academy at Warrington, his daughter| accompanied him, and resided there fifteen years. In 1773 she published a volume of miscellaneous poems, of which four editions were called for in one year, and also a collection of pieces in prose, some of which were written by her brother. In May 1774 she was married to the Rev. Rochenount Barbauld, a French Protestant, who was minister of a dissenting congregation at Palgrave, near Diss, and who had just opened a boarding-school at the neighbouring village of Palgrave, in Suffolk. The poetess participated with her husband in the task of instruction, and to her talents and exertions the seminary was mainly indebted for its success. In 1775 she came forward with a volume of devotional pieces compiled from the Psalms, and another volume of Hymns in Prose for children. In 1786, after a tour to the continent, Mr and Mrs Barbauld established themselves at Hampstead, and there several tracts proceeded from the pen of our authoress on the topics of the day, in all which she espoused the principles of the Whigs. She also assisted her father in preparing a series of tales for children, entitled Evenings at Home, and she wrote critical essays on Akenside and Collins, prefixed to editions of their works. In 1802 Mr Barbauld became pastor of the congregation (formerly Dr Price's) at Newington Green, also in the vicinity of London; and quitting Hampstead, they took up their abode in the village of Stoke Newington. In 1803 Mrs Barbauld compiled a selection of essays from the 'Spectator,' Tatler,' and Guardian,' to which she prefixed a preliminary essay; and in the following year she edited the correspondence of Richardson, and wrote an interesting and elegant life of the novelist. Her husband died in 1808, and Mrs Barbauld has recorded her feelings on this melancholy event in a poetical dirge to his memory, and also in her poem of Eighteen Hundred and Eleven. Seeking relief in literary occupation, she also edited a collection of the British novelists, published in 1810, with an introductory essay, and biographical and critical notices. After a gradual decay, this accomplished and excellent woman died on the 9th of March 1825. Some of the lyrical pieces of Mrs Barbauld are flowing and harmonious, and her 'Ode to Spring' is a happy imitation of Collins. She wrote also several poems in blank verse, characterised by a serious tenderness and

il

elevation of thought. Her earliest pieces,' says her niece, Mrs Lucy Aikin, as well as her more recent ones, exhibit in their imagery and allusions the fruits of extensive and varied reading. In youth, the power of her imagination was counterbalanced by the activity of her intellect, which exercised itself in rapid but not unprofitable excursions over almost every field of knowledge. In age, when this activity abated, imagination appeared to exert over her an undiminished sway.' Charles James Fox is said to have been a great admirer of Mrs Barbauld's songs, but they are by no means the best of her compositions, being generally artificial, and unimpassioned

in their character.

Ode to Spring.

Sweet daughter of a rough and stormy sire,
Hoar Winter's blooming child, delightful Spring!

Whose unshorn locks with leaves
And swelling buds are crowned;

From the green islands of eternal youth (Crowned with fresh blooms and ever-springing shade), Turn, hither turn thy step,

O thou, whose powerful voice

More sweet than softest touch of Doric reed

Or Lydian flute, can soothe the madding winds,
And through the stormy deep
Breathe thy own tender calm.

Thee, best beloved! the virgin-train await
With songs and festal rites, and joy to rove
Thy blooming wilds among,
And vales and dewy lawns,

With untired feet; and cull thy earliest sweets To weave fresh garlands for the glowing brow

Of him, the favoured youth

That prompts their whispered sigh.

Unlock thy copious stores; those tender showers
That drop their sweetness on the infant buds,
And silent dews that swell
The milky ear's green stem,

And feed the flowering osier's early shoots;

And call those winds, which through the whispering

boughs

With warm and pleasant breath

Salute the blowing flowers.

Now let me sit beneath the whitening thorn,
And mark thy spreading tints steal o'er the dale;
And watch with patient eye
Thy fair unfolding charms.

O nymph, approach! while yet the temperate sun
With bashful forehead, through the cool moist air
Throws his young maiden beams,
And with chaste kisses woos

The earth's fair bosom; while the streaming veil
Of lucid clouds, with kind and frequent shade,
Protects thy modest blooms
From his severer blaze.

Sweet is thy reign, but short: the red dog-star
Shall scorch thy tresses, and the mower's scythe
Thy greens, thy flowerets all,
Remorseless shall destroy.

Reluctant shall I bid thee then farewell;
For O not all that Autumn's lap contains,
Nor Summer's ruddiest fruits,
Can aught for thee atone,

Fair Spring! whose simplest promise more delights Than all their largest wealth, and through the heart

Each joy and new-born hope

With softest influence breathes.

To a Lady, with some Painted Flowers. Flowers to the fair: to you these flowers I bring, And strive to greet you with an earlier spring. Flowers sweet, and gay, and delicate like you; Emblems of innocence, and beauty too. With flowers the Graces bind their yellow hair, And flowery wreaths consenting lovers wear. Flowers, the sole luxury which nature knew, In Eden's pure and guiltless garden grew. To loftier forms are rougher tasks assigned; The sheltering oak resists the stormy wind, The tougher yew repels invading foes, And the tall pine for future navies grows: But this soft family to cares unknown, Were born for pleasure and delight alone. Gay without toil, and lovely without art, They spring to cheer the sense and glad the heart. Nor blush, my fair, to own you copy these; Your best, your sweetest empire is to please.

Hymn to Content.

-natura beatos

Omnibus esse dedit, si quis cognoverit uti.-Claudian

O thou, the nymph with placid eye! O seldom found, yet ever nigh!

Receive my temperate vow: Not all the storins that shake the pole Can e'er disturb thy halcyon soul,

And smooth the unaltered brow. O come, in simple vest arrayed, With all thy sober cheer displayed, To bless my longing sight; Thy mien composed, thy even pace, Thy meek regard, thy matron grace, And chaste subdued delight.

No more by varying passions beat,
O gently guide my pilgrim feet
To find thy hermit cell;
Where in some pure and equal sky,
Beneath thy soft indulgent eye,
The modest virtues dwell.
Simplicity in Attic vest,
And Innocence with candid breast,
And clear undaunted eye;

And Hope, who points to distant years,
Fair opening through this vale of tears,
A vista to the sky.

There Health, through whose calm bosom glide
The temperate joys in even-tide,
That rarely ebb or flow;

And Patience there, thy sister meek,
Presents her mild unvarying cheek
To meet the offered blow.

Her influence taught the Phrygian sage
A tyrant master's wanton rage

With settled smiles to wait:
Inured to toil and bitter bread,
He bowed his meek submissive head,
And kissed thy sainted feet.

But thou, oh nymph retired and coy!
In what brown hamlet dost thou joy
To tell thy tender tale?
The lowliest children of the ground,
Moss-rose and violet, blossom round,
And lily of the vale.

O say what soft propitious hour
I best may choose to hail thy power
And court thy gentle sway?
When autumn, friendly to the Muse,
Shall thy own modest tints diffuse,
And shed thy milder day.