To show that all the flattering schemes of joy, And plunge th' exulting maniac in despair. Time shall administer its wonted balm, And hush this storm of grief to no unpleasing calm. Thus the poor bird, by some disast❜rous fate' No more it pants and rages for the plain; Droops the sweet mourner-but, ere long, Prunes its light wings, and pecks its food, And meditates the song: Serenely sorrowing, breathes its piteous case, And with its plaintive warblings saddens all the place. Forgive me, Heaven-yet-yet the tears will flow, To think how soon my scene of bliss is past! My budding joys just promising to blow. All nipt and wither'd by one envious blast! P My hours, that laughing wont to fleet away, Where's now the sprightly jest, the jocund Time creeps unconscious of delight: How shall I cheat the tedious day? And Othe joyless night! Where shall I rest my weary head? How shall I find repose on a sad widow'd bed? Sickness and sorrow hovering round my bed, Who now with anxious haste shall bring relief, With lenient hand support my drooping head, Assuage my pains, and mitigate my grief? Should worldly business call away, Who now shall in my absence fondly mourn, Too faithful memory- Cease, O cease- And thou, my little cherub, left behind, To hear a father's plaints, to share his woes, When reason's dawn informs thy infant mind, And thy sweet-lisping tongue shall ask the cause, By all the tears thou'st caus'd-(O strange to hear!) Bought with a life yet dearer than thy own, Thy infant steps to guide aright? By all thy soft endearments blest, And clasp thee oft with transport to her breast, When years thy judgment shall mature, When sick and languishing I lie, Wilt thou my Emma's wonted care supply? Say, wilt thou strive to make it less? TOBIAS SMOLLETT. TOBIAS SMOLLETT was the grandson of Sir James Smollett, of Bonhill, a member of the Scottish parliament, and one of the commissioners for the union. The father of the novelist was a younger son of the knight, and had married without his consent. He died in the prime of life, and left his children dependent on their grandfather. Were we to trust to Roderick Random's account of his relations, for authentic portraits of the author's. family, we should entertain no very prepossessing idea of the old gentleman; but it appears that Sir James Smollett supported his son, and educated his grandchildren. Smollett was born near Renton, in the parish of Cardross, and shire of Dumbarton, and passed his earliest years among those scenes on the banks of the Leven, which he has described with some interest in the Adventures of Humphrey Clinker. He res ceived his first instructions in classical learning at the school of Dumbarton. He was afterwards removed to the college of Glasgow, where he pursued the study of medicine; and, according to the practice then usual in medical education, was bound apprentice to a Mr. Gordon, a surgeon in that city. Gordon is generally said to have been the original of Potion in Roderick Random. This has been denied by Smollett's biographers; but their conjec ture is of no more weight than the tradition which it contradicts. In the characters of a work, so compounded of truth and fiction, the author alone could have estimated the personality which he intended, and of that intention he was not probably communicative. The tradition still remaining at Glasgow is, that Smollett was a restive apprentice, and a mischievous stripling. While at the university he cultivated the study of literature, as well as of medicine, and shewed a disposition for poetry, but very often in that bitter vein of satire which he car ried so plentifully into the temper of his future years. He had also, before he was eighteen, composed a tragedy, entitled the "Regicide." This tragedy |