But waged with death a lasting strife,
Supported by despair of life.

He shouted: nor his friends had fail'd
To check the vessel's course,
But so the furious blast prevail'd,
That pitiless perforce,

They left their outcast mate behind,
And scudded still before the wind.

Some succour yet they could afford;
And, such as storms allow,

The cask, the coop, the floated cord,
Delay'd not to bestow.

But he (they knew) nor ship nor shore,
Whate'er they gave, should visit more.

Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he

Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight, in such a sea,

Alone could rescue them;
Yet bitter felt it still to die
Deserted, and his friends so nigh.

He long survives, who lives an hour
In ocean, self-upheld;

And so long he, with unspent power,
His destiny repell'd;

And ever as the minutes flew,
Entreated help, or cried-" Adieu !"

At length, his transient respite past,
His comrades, who before

Had heard his voice in every blast,
Could catch the sound no more:
S. C.-10.

H

For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank.

No poet wept him; but the page
Of narrative sincere,

That tells his name, his worth, his age,
Is wet with Anson's tear:

And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalize the dead.

I therefore purpose not, or dream,
Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:
But misery still delights to trace
Its 'semblance in another's case.

No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone,

When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone:

But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.

MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTION

ΤΟ

WILLIAM NORTHCOT.

HIC sepultus est
Inter suorum lacrymas

GULIELMUS NORTHCOT,
GULIELMI et MARIE filius

Unicus, unicè dilectus,
Qui floris ritu succisus est semihiantis,
Aprilis die septimo,
1780, Æt. 10.

Care, vale! Sed non æternum, care, valeto!
Namque iterum tecum, sim modò dignus, ero.
Tum nihil amplexus poterit divellere nostros,
Nec tu marcesces, nec lacrymabor ego.

TRANSLATION.

FAREWELL!" But not for ever," Hope replies,
Trace but his steps and meet him in the skies!
There nothing shall renew our parting pain,
Thou shalt not wither, nor I weep again.

A RIDDLE.

I AM just two and two, I am warm, I am cold,
And the parent of numbers that cannot be told.
I am lawful, unlawful-a duty, a fault,

I am often sold dear, good for nothing when bought;
An extraordinary boon, and a matter of course,
And yielded with pleasure when taken by force.

ANSWER.

FROM THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, VOL. LXXVI. P. 1224.

A RIDDLE by Cowper

Made me swear like a trooper;

But my anger, alas! was in vain ;
For remembering the bliss
Of beauty's soft Kiss,

I now long for such riddles again.

J. T.

IN SEDITIONEM HORRENDAM,

CORRUPTELIS GALLICIS, UT FERTUR, LONDINI NUPER EXORTAM.

PERFIDA, crudelis, victa et lymphata furore,
Non armis, laurum Gallia fraude petit.
Venalem pretio plebem conducit, et urit
Undique privatas patriciasque domos.
Nequicquam conata suâ, fœdissima sperat
Posse tamen nostrâ nos superare manu.
Gallia, vana struis! Precibus nunc utere! Vinces,
Nam mites timidis supplicibusque sumus.

TRANSLATION.

FALSE, cruel, disappointed, stung to the heart,
France quits the warrior's for the assassin's part,
To dirty hands a dirty bribe conveys,
Bids the low street and lofty palace blaze.
Her sons, too weak to vanquish us alone,
She hires the worst and basest of our own.
Kneel, France! a suppliant conquers us with ease,
We always spare a coward on his knees.

COWPER had sinn'd with some excuse,
If, bound in rhyming tethers,

He had committed this abuse

Of changing ewes for wethers';

I have heard about my wether mutton from various quarters. It was a blunder hardly pardonable in a man who has lived amid fields and meadows, grazed by sheep, almost these thirty years. I have accordingly satirized myself in two stanzas

But, male for female is a trope,

Or rather bold misnomer,
That would have startled even Pope,

When he translated Homer.

STANZAS

SUBJOINED TO THE YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY OF THE

PARISH OF ALL-SAINTS, NORTHAMPTON 1,

ANNO DOMINI 1787.

Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,
Regumque turres.

HORACE.

Pale Death with equal foot strikes wide the door
Of royal halls and hovels of the poor.

WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run
The Nen's barge-laden wave,
All these, life's rambling journey done,
Have found their home, the grave.

Was man (frail always) made more frail
Than in foregoing years?

Did famine or did plague prevail,
That so much death appears?

which I composed last night, while I lay awake, tormented with pain, and well dosed with laudanum. If you find them not very brilliant, therefore, you will know how to account for it.— Letter to Joseph Hill, April 15, 1792.

1 Composed for John Cox, parish clerk of Northampton.