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placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.

Spectator, No. 26,

As a poet, Addison does not take the highest rank, and yet he has written much that would be more valued had it not been thrown into the shade by the comparative brilliancy of his prose. One of his best pieces is his poetical Letter to Lord Halifax, written from Italy in 1701. Of this Dr. Drake' thus speaks: "Had he written nothing else, this Epistle ought to have acquired for him the reputation of a good poet. Its versification is remarkably sweet and polished, its vein of description usually rich and clear, and its sentiments often pathetic, and sometimes even sublime. We see Addison, with the ardent enthusiasm of a mind fresh from the study of the classics, exploring with unwearied fondness and assiduity the neglected relics of antiquity, and tracing every stream and mountain recorded in the songs of the Bard. praises of liberty break forth with uncommon warmth and beauty; with that energy of phrase and thought which only genuine emotion can supply."

His

FROM THE LETTER FROM ITALY.

For wheresoe'er I turn my ravish'd eyes,
Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise;
Poetic fields encompass me around,
And still I seem to tread on classic ground;
For here the muse so oft her harp has strung,
That not a mountain rears its head unsung;
Renown'd in verse each shady thicket grows,
And every stream in heavenly numbers flows.
See how the golden groves around me smile,
That shun the coast of Britain's stormy isle;
Or when transplanted and preserved with care,
Curse the cold clime, and starve in northern air.
Here kindly warmth their mounting juice ferments
To nobler tastes, and more exalted scents;
E'en the rough rocks with tender myrtle bloom,
And trodden weeds send out a rich perfume.
Bear me, some god, to Baia's gentle seats,
Or cover me in Umbria's green retreats;
Where western gales eternally reside,
And all the seasons lavish all their pride;
Blossoms, and fruits, and flowers together rise,
And the whole year in gay confusion lies.
How has kind Heaven adorn'd the happy land,
And scatter'd blessings with a wasteful hand!
But what avail her unexhausted stores,
Her blooming mountains and her sunny shores,

Essays on the Tatler, Guardian, and Spectator, vol. 1. p. 315.

With all the gifts that heaven and earth impart,
The smiles of nature, and the charms of art,
While proud oppression in her valleys reigns,
And tyranny usurps her happy plains?
The poor inhabitant beholds in vain

The reddening orange, and the swelling grain:
Joyless he sees the growing oils and wines,
And in the myrtle's fragrant shade repines:
Starves in the midst of nature's bounty curst,
And in the loaded vineyard dies for thirst.

O Liberty, thou goddess heavenly bright,
Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight!
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,
And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train;
Eased of her load, subjection grows more light,
And poverty looks cheerful in thy sight;
Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay,
Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day.
Thee, goddess, thee, Britannia's isle adores;
How has she oft exhausted all her stores,
How oft in fields of death thy presence sought,
Nor thinks the mighty prize too dearly bought!
On foreign mountains may the sun refine
The grape's soft juice, and mellow it to wine:
With citron groves adorn a distant soil,
And the fat olive swell with floods of oil:

We envy not the warmer clime, that lies

In ten degrees of more indulgent skies;

Nor at the coarseness of our heaven repine,

Though o'er our heads the frozen Pleiads shine:

'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle,

And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.

PARAPHRASE OF PSALM XXIII.

I.

The Lord my pasture shall prepare,
And feed me with a shepherd's care;
His presence shall my wants supply,
And guard me with a watchful eye:
My noon-day walks he shall attend,
And all my midnight hours defend.

II.

When in the sultry glebe I faint,
Or on the thirsty mountain pant;
To fertile vales and dewy meads
My weary, wandering steps he leads:
Where peaceful rivers, soft and slow,
Amid the verdant landscape flow.

III.

Though in the paths of death I tread,
With gloomy horrors overspread,
My steadfast heart shall fear no ill,
For thou, O Lord, art with me still;
Thy friendly crook shall give me aid,
And guide me through the dreadful shade

IV.

Though in a bare and rugged way,
Through devious, lonely wilds I stray,
Thy bounty shall my wants beguile;
The barren wilderness shall smile,
With sudden green and herbage crown'd,
And streams shall murmur all around.

ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA. Died 1720.

THIS lady was the daughter of Sir William Kingsmill, of Sidmonton, in the county of Southampton, and was married to Heneage, Earl of Winchelsea. A collection of her poems was printed in 1713.

"It is remarkable," says Wordsworth, "that excepting a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, and some delightful pictures in the poems of Lady Winchelsea, the poetry of the period intervening between the publica tion of the Paradise Lost and the Seasons, does not contain a single new image of external nature."

THE ATHEIST AND THE ACORN.

Methinks the world is oddly made,
And every thing's amiss,
A dull, presuming Atheist said,
As stretch'd he lay beneath a shade;
And instanced it in this:

Behold, quoth he, that mighty thing,
A Pumpkin large and round,
Is held but by a little string,
Which upwards cannot make it spring,
Or bear it from the ground.

Whilst on this Oak a fruit so small,
So disproportion'd, grows;

That who with sense surveys this all,
This universal casual ball,

Its ill contrivance knows.

My better judgment would have hung
That weight upon a tree,

And left this mast, thus slightly strung,
'Mongst things which on the surface sprung,
And small and feeble be.

No more the caviller could say,
Nor farther faults descry;
For, as he upwards gazing lay,
An Acorn, loosen'd from the stay,
Fell down upon his eye.

Th' offended part with tears ran o'er,

As punish'd for the sin;

Fool! had that bough a pumpkin bore,

Thy whimsies must have work'd no more,
Nor skull had kept them in.

LIFE'S PROGRESS.

How gayly is at first begun
Our life's uncertain race!

Whilst yet that sprightly morning sun,
With which we just set out to run,
Enlightens all the place.

How smiling the world's prospect lies,
How tempting to go through!
Not Canaan to the prophet's eyes,
From Pisgah, with a sweet surprise,
Did more inviting show.

How soft the first ideas prove,

Which wander through our minds!
How full the joys, how free the love,
Which does that early season move,
As flowers the western winds!

Our sighs are then but vernal air,
But April drops our tears,
Which swiftly passing, all grows fair,
Whilst beauty compensates our care,
And youth each vapor clears.

But, oh! too soon, alas! we climb,
Scarce feeling, we ascend

The gently-rising hill of Time,

From whence with grief we see that prime

And all its sweetness end.

The die now cast, our station known,

Fond expectation past:

The thorns which former days had sown, To crops of late repentance grown,

Through which we toil at last.

Whilst every care's a driving harm,
That helps to bear us down;
Which faded smiles no more can charm,
But every tear's a winter-storm,
And every look's a frown.

MATTHEW PRIOR. 1665-1721.

Or the parentage of Prior very little is known. He was nephew of the keeper of a tavern at Charing Cross, where he was found by the Earl of Dorset, and sent, at his expense, to be educated at Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship. By the same nobleman's influence, he went as secretary to the English ambassador at the Hague. In 1697 he was secretary of legation at the treaty of Ryswick, and the next year held the same office at the court of France. At fifty-three years of age he found himself, after all his important employments, with no other means of subsistence than his fellowship at Cambridge; but the publication of his poems by subscription, and the kindness of Lord Hasley, restored him to easy circumstances for the rest of his life. He died, after a lingering illness, in 1721, in the fifty-eighth year of his age.

"Prior," says Campbell, "was one of the last of the race of poets who relied for ornament on scholastic allusion and pagan machinery; but he used them like Swift, more in jest than earnest, and with good effect." His poetry has the qualities of ease, fluency, and correctness. We give one specimen:

AN EPITAPH.

Interr'd beneath this marble stone
Lie sauntering Jack and idle Joan.
While rolling threescore years and one
Did round this globe their courses run,
If human things went ill or well,
If changing empires rose or fell,
The morning past, the evening came,
And found this couple still the same.

They walk'd, and eat, good folks: what then:
Why then they walk'd and eat again:
They soundly slept the night away;
They did just nothing all the day:
Nor sister either had nor brother;
They seem'd just tallied for each other.
Their moral and economy
Most perfectly they made agree:
Each virtue kept its proper bound,
Nor trespass'd on the other's ground.
Nor fame nor censure they regarded.
They neither punish'd nor rewarded.
He cared not what the footman did;
Her maids she neither praised nor chid:
So every servant took his course,
And, bad at first, they all grew worse.
Slothful disorder fill'd his stable,

And sluttish plenty deck'd her table.

Their beer was strong; their wine was port;
Their meal was large; their grace was short.
They gave the poor the remnant meat,

Just when it grew not fit to eat.

They paid the church and parish rate,
And took, but read not, the receipt;

For which they claim'd their Sunday's due,

Of slumbering in ar upper pew.

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