I teach in winding wreaths to stray Fantastic ivy's gadding spray.

"At eve, within yon studious nook,
I ope my brass-embossed book,
Portray'd with many a holy deed
Of martyrs, crown'd with heavenly meed:
Then as my taper waxes dim,

Chant, ere I sleep, my measur'd hymn;
And at the close, the gleams behold
Of parting wings bedropt with gold.

"While such pure joys my bliss create,
Who would but smile at guilty state?
Who would but wish his holy lot
In calm Oblivion's humble grot?
Who but would cast his pomp away,
To take my staff, and amice gray;

And to the world's tumultuous stage Prefer the blameless hermitage ?"

Headley remarks, too, that the leading idea of these lines was suggested by an account of the life of a peasant in Phineas Fletcher's "Purple Island." Dr Mant agrees with him ; but we see small reason or none for thinking so, and believe that the "leading idea," which is obvious to all mankind, was suggested to Warton many hundred times during his walks in the Forest of Whichwood. Fletcher's stanzas, however, are "beautiful exceedingly". -as these two declare.

Joseph and Thomas Warton, as all the world once knew, were most affectionate brothers-and Tom seldom left Oxford but to visit Joe at Winchester, which he did annually as long as he lived, and where he was the delight of the boys, writing for them their themes and tasks, and mingling with their amusements till the very last. Before Joseph's elevation to the mastership, he went abroad with the Duke of Bolton, and on that occasion Thomas indited the beautiful lines, "Sent to a Friend on his leaving a favourite Cottage in Hampshire."

SENT TO A FRIEND.

"Ah mourn, thou lov'd retreat! No more Shall classic steps thy scenes explore! When morn's pale rays but faintly peep O'er yonder oak-crown'd airy steep, Who now shall climb its brows to view The length of landscape, ever new, Where Summer flings, in careless pride, Her varied vesture far and wide! Who mark, beneath, each village-charm, grange, or elm-encircled farm :

The flinty dove-cote's crowded roof,
Watch'd by the kite that sails aloof:
The tufted pines, whose umbrage tall
Darkens the long-deserted hall:
The veteran beech, that on the plain
Collects at eve the playful train:
The cot that smokes with early fire,
The low-roof'd fane's embosom'd spire!

"Who now shall indolently stray
Through the deep forest's tangled way;
Pleas'd at his custom'd task to find
The well known hoary-tressed hind,
That toils with feeble hands to glean
Of wither'd boughs his pittance mean!
Who mid thy nooks of hazle sit,
Lost in some melancholy fit;
And listening to the raven's croak,
The distant flail, the falling oak!
Who, through the sunshine and the
shower,

Descry the rainbow-painted tower?
Who, wandering at return of May,
Catch the first cuckow's vernal lay?
Who musing waste the summer hour,
Where high o'er-arching trees embower
The grassy lane, so rarely pac'd,
With azure flow'rets idly grac'd!
Unnotic'd now, at twilight's dawn
Returning reapers cross the lawn;

Nor fond attention loves to note
The wether's bell from folds remote:
While, own'd by no poetic eye,
Thy pensive evenings shade the sky!
"For lo! the Bard who rapture found
In every rural sight or sound;
Whose genius warm, and judgment chaste,
No charm of genuine nature pass'd;
Who felt the Muse's purest fires,
Far from thy favour'd haunt retires:
Who peopled all thy vocal bowers
With shadowy shapes, and airy powers.
"Behold, a dread repose resumes,
As erst, thy sad sequester'd glooms!
From the deep dell, where shaggy roots
Fringe the rough brink with wreathed
shoots,

Th' unwilling genius flies forlorn,
His primrose chaplet rudely torn.
With hollow shriek the nymphs forsake
The pathless copse and hedge-row brake:
Where the delv'd mountain's headlong

side

Its chalky entrails opens wide,

On the green summit, ambush'd high,
No longer Echo loves to lie.

No pearl-crown'd maids with wily look,
Rise beckoning from the reedy brook.
Around the glow-worm's glimmering bank,
No fairies run in fiery rank;
Nor brush, half-seen, in airy tread
The violet's unprinted head.
But Fancy, from the thickets brown,
The glades that wear a conscious frown,
The forest-oaks, that, pale and lone,
Nod to the blast with hoarser tone,
Rough glens, and sullen waterfalls,
Her bright ideal offspring calls.

"So by some sage enchanter's spell, (As old Arabian fablers tell,) Amid the solitary wild, Luxuriant gardens gaily smil'd: From sapphire rocks the fountains stream'd,

With golden fruit the branches beam'd;
Fair forms, in every wondrous wood,
Or lightly tripp'd, or solemn stood;
And oft, retreating from the view,
Betray'd, at distance, beauties new:
While gleaming o'er the crisped bowers
Rich spires arose, and sparkling towers.
If bound on service new to go,
The master of the magic show,
His transitory charm withdrew,
Away th' illusive landscape flew :
Dun clouds obscur'd the groves of gold,
Blue lightning smote the blooming mould:
In visionary glory rear'd,

The gorgeous castle disappeared;
And a bare heath's unfruitful plain
Usurp'd the wizard's proud domain."
We call these beautiful lines; nor does
it detract much from their merit that
they have little or no claim to origina-

lity-for if much of the images be borrowed from books, as much is taken from nature, and the whole is finely fused together by an affectionate heart and a glowing fancy, and comes from the process, Poetry. The close was, perhaps, imitated from Akenside

"So fables tell,

The adventurous hero, bound on hard ex-
ploits,
Beholds with glad surprise, by secret spells
Of some kind sage, the patron of his toils,
A visionary paradise disclosed
Amid the dubious wild," &c.

But Akenside imitated Addison, and of the three fine pictures, Addison's is the finest as you will confess. We have it by heart. "We are every where entertained with pleasing shows and apparitions; we discover imaginary glories in the heavens and in the earth, and see some of their visionary beauty poured out on the whole creation. But what a rough unsightly sketch of nature should we be entertained with, did all her colouring disappear, and the several distinctions of light and shade vanish? In short, our souls are at present delightfully lost and bewildered in a pleasing delusion, and we walk about like the enchanted hero in a romance, who sees beautiful castles, woods, and meadows, and at the same time hears the warbling of birds and purling of streams; but, upon the finishing of some secret spell, the fantastic scene breaks up, and the disconsolate knight finds himself on a barren heath, or in a solitary forest."

It is something-much-to deserve the name of a descriptive Poet even of the lowest order. No man can describe natural objects well, without some feeling of their beauty-without the power of re-awakening in himself that feeling, by an act of the imagination. The feeling keeps him to the truth, and inspires him to paint it. And he who has this power of feeling is so far a Poet. He who has it not, or in whom it is faint and fluctuating, may have no inconsiderable pleasure, even beyond that of the senses, in the charms of nature; but in attempting to describe them, he makes but sorry work of it, and the more gorgeous his imagery, and the more laboriously gathered, the more prosaic is his picture. Often nowa-days they who have little or no knowledge of nature, and therefore

who can have little or no pleasure in her appearances, try to deceive themselves into the belief that they are haunted-possessed by a sense of her most potent charms, and to escape the tame assume the intense! Such gentry would despise Warton's lines "On the approach of Summer." But you will not despise them-you will read them with delight.

"Oft when thy season, sweetest queen, Has dress'd the groves in liv'ry green; When in each fair and fertile field Beauty begins her bow'r to build! While Evening, veil'd in shadows brown, Puts her matron-mantle on,

And mists in spreading streams convey More fresh the fumes of new-shorn hay: Then, goddess, guide my pilgrim feet Contemplation hoar to meet,

As slow he winds in museful mood,
Near the rush'd marge of Cherwell's
flood;

Or o'er old Avon's magic edge,
Whence Shakspeare cull'd the spiky sedge,
All playful yet, in years unripe,

To frame a shrill and simple pipe.
There thro' the dusk but dimly seen,
Sweet ev'ning-objects intervene :
His wattled cotes the shepherd plants,
Beneath her elm the milk-maid chants,
The woodman, speeding home, awhile
Rests him at a shady stile.

Nor wants there fragrance to dispense
Refreshment o'er my soothed sense;
Nor tangled woodbine's balmy bloom,
Nor grass besprent to breathe perfume:
Nor lurking wild-thyme's spicy sweet
To bathe in dew my roving feet:
Nor wants there note of Philomel,
Nor sound of distant tinkling bell:
Nor lowings faint of herds remote,
Nor mastiff's bark from bosom'd cot:
Rustle the breezes lightly borne,
O'er deep embattled ears of coru:
Round ancient elm, with humming noise,
Full loud the chaffer-swarms rejoice.
Meantime, a thousand dyes invest
The ruby Chambers of the West!
That all aslant the village tow'r
A mild reflected radiance pour,
While, with the level-streaming rays
Far seen its arched windows blaze:
And the tall grove's green top is dight
In russet tints, and gleams of light:
So that the gay scene by degrees
Bathes my blithe heart in ecstacies;
And Fancy to my ravish'd sight
Portrays her kindred visions bright.
At length the parting light subdues
My softened soul to calmer views,
And fainter shapes of pensive joy,
As twilight dawns, my mind employ,

Till from the path I fondly stray
In musings lap'd, nor heed the way;
Wandering through the landscape still,
Till Melancholy has her fill;
And on each moss-wove border damp
The glow-worm hangs his fairy lamp.

"But when the sun, at noontide hour, Sits throned in his highest tow'r;

Me, heart-rejoicing goddess, lead
To the tann'd haycock in the mead:
To mix in rural mood among
The nymphs and swains, a busy throng;
Or, as the tepid odours breathe,
The russet piles to lean beneath :
There as my listless limbs are thrown
On couch more soft than palace down,
I listen to the busy sound

Of mirth and toil that hums around;
And see the team shrill tinkling pass,
Alternate o'er the furrow'd grass.

"But ever, after summer shower,
When the bright Sun's returning power,
With laughing beam has chased the storm,
And cheered reviving Nature's form;
By sweet-brier hedges, bathed in dew,
Let me my wholesome path pursue;
There issuing forth the frequent snail
Wears the dank way with slimy trail,
While, as I walk, from pearled bush
The sunny sparkling drop I brush;
And all the landscape fair I view
Clad in robe of fresher hue;
And so loud the blackbird sings,
That far and near the valley rings.
From shelter deep of shaggy rock
The shepherd drives his joyful flock;
From bowering beach the mower blithe
With new-born vigour grasps the scythe;
While o'er the smooth unbounded meads
His last faint gleam the rainbow spreads.
But ever against restless heat,
Bear me to the rock arched seat,
O'er whose dim mouth an ivy'd oak
Hangs nodding from the low-brow'd rock ;
Haunted by that chaste nymph alone,
Whose waters cleave the smoothed stone;
Which, as they gush upon the ground,
Still scatter misty dews around;
A rustic, wild, grotesque alcove,
Its side with mantling woodbines wove;
Cool as the cave where Clio dwells,
Whence Helicon's fresh fountain wells;
Or noon-tide grot where Sylvan sleeps
In hoar Lyceum's piny steeps.

"Me, goddess, in such cavern lay, While all without is scorch'd in day; Sore sighs the weary swain, beneath His with'ring hawthorn on the heath; The drooping hedger wishes eve, In vain, of labour short reprieve! Meantime, on Afric's glowing sand, Smote with keen heat, the trav'ller stands ; Low sinks his heart, while round his eye Measures the scenes that boundless lie,

Ne'er yet by foot of mortal worn,
Where Thirst, wan pilgrim, walks forlorn.
How does he wish some cooling wave
To slake his lips, or limbs to lave!
And thinks, in every whisper low,
He hears a bursting fountain flow.

"Or bear me to yon antique wood,
Dim temple of sage Solitude!
There within a nook most dark,
Where none my musing mood may mark,
Let me in many a whisper'd rite
The genius old of Greece invite,
With that fair wreath my brows to bind,
Which for his chosen imps he twin'd,
Well nurtur'd in Pierian lore,
On clear Ilissus' laureate shore.
Till high on waving nest reclin'd,
The raven wakes my tranced mind!
"Or to the forest-fringed vale,
Where widow'd turtles love to wail,
Where cowslips, clad in mantle meek,
Nod their tall heads to breezes weak:
In the midst, with sedges gray
Crown'd. a scant riv'let winds its way,
And trembling thro' the weedy wreaths,
Around an oozy freshness breathes.
O'er the solitary green,

Nor cot, nor loitering hind is seen:
Nor aught alarms the mute repose,
Save that by fits an heifer lows:

A scene might tempt some peaceful sage
To rear him a lone hermitage;
Fit place his pensive eld might choose
On virtue's holy lore to muse.

"Yet still the sultry noon t' appease
Some more romantic scene might please;
Or fairy bank, or magic lawn,
By Spenser's lavish pencil drawn :
Or bower in Vallombrosa's shade,
By legendary pens portrayed.

Haste, let me shroud from painful light,
On that hoar hill's aerial height,
In solemn state, where waving wide,
Thick pines with darkening umbrage hide
The rugged vaults, and riven towers
Of that proud castle's painted bowers,
Whence Hardyknute, a baron bold,
In Scotland's martial days of old,
Descended from the stately feast,
Begirt with many a warrior guest,
To quell the pride of Norway's king,
With quiv'ring lance and twanging string.
As through the caverns dim I wind,
Might I that holy legend find,
By fairies spelt in mystic rhymes,
To teach enquiring later times,
What open force, or secret guile,
Dashed into dust the solemn pile."

Verily there is poetry in these verses -nor are they, to our mind at least, the worse but the better of being besprinkled with colourings from MilWe do not call that plagiarism -nor is it borrowing; Warton lays

ton.

no claim to a diction peculiarly his own; and having studied Milton all his life, he had become imbued with the language of his minor poems, which he rejoiced to use in love and reverrence of his mighty master. The

flow of thought, and sentiment, and imagery proceeds from his own genius thus enriched; and had he not been a true poet (nobody calls him a great one), his familiarity with Milton would have been shown but in Centos.

His Humourous Pieces" are very pleasant-and "the Progress of Discontent" (written in his eighteenth year) has been pronounced by Dr Joseph to be "the best imitation of Swift that has yet appeared." Here it is.

THE PROGRESS OF DISCONTENT.

"When now mature in classic knowledge,
The joyful youth is sent to college,
His father comes, a vicar plain,
At Oxford bred-in Anna's reign,
And thus, in form of humble suitor,
Bowing accosts a reverend tutor :
Sir, I'm a Glo'stershire divine,
And this my eldest son of nine;
My wife's ambition and my own

Was that this child should wear a gown;
I'll warrant that his good behaviour
Will justify your future favour;
And, for his parts, to tell the truth,
My son's a very forward youth;
Has Horace all by heart-you'd wonder-
And mouths out Homer's Greek like
thunder.

If you'd examine—and admit him,
A scholarship would nicely fit him;
That he succeeds 'tis ten to one;
Your vote and interest, sir !'-'Tis done.
"Our pupil's hopes, though twice de-
feated,

Are with a scholarship completed:
A scholarship but half maintains,
And college rules are heavy chains :
In garret dark he smokes and puns,
A prey to discipline and duns;
And now, intent on new designs,
Sighs for a fellowship-and fines.

"When nine full tedious winters past,

That utmost wish is crown'd at last:
But the rich prize no sooner got,

Again he quarrels with his lot :

These fellowships are pretty things, We live indeed like petty kings: But who can bear to waste his whole age Amid the dulness of a college, Debarr'd the common joys of life, And that prime bliss-a loving wife! O! what's a table richly spread, Without a woman at its head!

Would some snug benefice but fall,
Ye feasts, ye dinners! farewell all!
To offices I'd bid adieu,

Of dean, vice præs.—of bursar too;
Come joys, that rural quiet yields,
Come, tithes, and house, and fruitful
fields !'

"Too fond of freedom and of ease
A patron's vanity to please,
Long time he watches, and by stealth,
Each frail incumbent's doubtful health;
At length, and in his fortieth year,
A living drops-two hundred clear!
With breast elate beyond expression,
He hurries down to take possession,
With rapture views the sweet retreat-
'What a convenient house! how neat!
For fuel here's sufficient wood:
Pray God the cellars may be good!
The garden-that must be new plann'd-
Shall these old-fashion'd yew-trees stand?
O'er yonder vacant plot shall rise
The flow'ry shrub of thousand dies :-
Yon wall, that feels the southern ray,
Shall blush with ruddy fruitage gay:
While thick beneath its aspect warm
O'er well-rang'd hives the bees shall

swarm,

From which, ere long, of golden gleam
Metheglin's luscious juice shall stream;
This awkward hut, o'ergrown with ivy,
We'll alter to a modern privy ;
Up yon green slope, of hazels trim,
An avenue so cool and dim
Shall to an harbour at the end,
In spite of gout, entice a friend.
My predecessor lov'd devotion-
But of a garden had no notion.'
"Continuing this fantastic farce on,
He now commences country parson.
To make his character entire,
He weds-a cousin of the squire ;
Not over weighty in the purse,
But many doctors have done worse;
And though she boasts no charms divine,
Yet she can carve and make birch-wine.

"Thus fixt, content he taps his barrel,
Exhorts his neighbours not to quarrel;
Finds his church-wardens have discerning
Both in good liquor and good learning;
With tithes his barns replete he sees,
And chuckles o'er his surplice fees;
Studies to find out latent dues,
And regulates the state of pews;
Rides a sleek mare with purple housing,
To share the monthly club's carousing;
Of Oxford pranks facetious tells,
And but on Sundays-hears no bells;
Sends presents of his choicest fruit,
And prunes himself each sapless shoot;

Plants cauliflow'rs, and boasts to rear
The earliest melons of the year;
Thinks alteration charming work is,
Keeps Bantam cocks, and feeds his turkies;
Builds in his copse a fav'rite bench,
And stores the pond with carp and tench.
"But ah! too soon his thoughtless
breast

By cares domestic is opprest;

And a third butcher's bill, and brewing,
Threaten inevitable ruin:

For children fresh expenses yet,
And Dicky now for school is fit.
'Why did I sell my college life'
(He cries) for benefice and wife?
Return, ye days, when endless pleasure
I found in reading, or in leisure!
When calm around the common room
I puff'd my daily pipe's perfume!
Rode for a stomach, and inspected,
At annual bottlings, corks selected :
And din'd untax'd, untroubled, under
The portrait of our pious founder!
When impositions were supply'd
To light my pipe-or sooth my pride-
No cares were then for forward peas,
A yearly-longing wife to please;
My thoughts no christ'ning dinners crost,
No children cry'd for butter'd toast;
And every night I went to bed,
Without a modus in my head!'

"Oh! trifling head, and fickle heart! Chagrin'd at whatsoe'er thou art; A dupe to follies yet untry'd,

And sick of pleasures scarce enjoy'd! Each prize possess'd, thy transport ceases, And in pursuit alone it pleases."

Of "Newmarket," a satire, Dr Mant somewhat too boldly says, "I do not think it can be deemed inferior to the best satirical compositions of Young and Pope." That will never do. There is too much whipping and spurring of his Pegasus, who makes play from the start. The truth is, that the Laureate liked a race-course, and between heats used to leave the stand for a booth. It could not be said of him, “ facit indignatio versus” -and he indulges in such exaggeration as shows him not to have been quite sincere in his ire. But here is a passage worthy of all admiration-on account of the beautiful picture it presents of the "good old seat" of "the good old English gentleman."