THE SUDDEN DEATH AND FUNERAL. THEN died lamented, in the strength of life, Call'd not away, when time had loosed each hold Slowly they bore, with solemn step, the dead, And soothing words to younger minds applied: Be still, be patient," oft she strove to say; But fail'd as oft, and weeping turn'd away. Curious and sad, upon the fresh-dug hill, The village lads stood melancholy still; And idle children, wandering to and fro, As nature guided, took the tone of wo. THE DEATH OF RUTH.* SHE left her infant on the Sunday morn, A creature doom'd to shame! in sorrow born. She came not home to share our humble meal,— Her father thinking what his child would feel From his hard sentence!-Still she came not home, The night grew dark, and yet she was not come ! The east-wind roar'd, the sea return'd the sound, And the rain fell as if the world were drown'd: There were no lights without, and my good man, To kindness frighten'd, with a groan began To talk of Ruth, and pray! and then he took The Bible down, and read the holy book: Ruth is betrothed-something more than betrothedto a young sailor, who, on the eve of marriage, is carried relentlessly off by a press-gang, and afterward slain in battle. A canting, hypocritical weaver afterward becomes a suitor of the widowed bride, and her father urges her with severity to wed the missioned suiter. The above extract is from the conclusion of the story, in the "Tales of the Hall." The heroine has promised to give her answer on Sunday. For he had learning: and when that was done, I scarcely heard the good man's fearful shout, And she was gone! the waters wide and deep But oh! what storm was in that mind! what strife, That could compel her to lay down her life! For she was seen within the sea to wade, By one at distance, when she first had pray'd; Then to a rock within the hither shoal, Softly, and with a fearful step, she stole; Then, when she gain'd it, on the top she stood A moment still-and dropt into the flood! The man cried loudly, but he cried in vain,— She heard not then-she never heard again! 1 A GROUP OF GIPSIES. A WIDE And sandy road has banks on either side; state, Cursing his tardy aid-her mother there To trace the progress of their future years; [ceit, They talk, indeed; but who can choose a friend, THE POOR-HOUSE. YOUR plan I love not-with a number you Have placed your poor, your pitiable few; There, in one house, for all their lives to be, The pauper-palace which they hate to see! That giant building, that high bounding wall, Those bare-worn walks, that lofty thundering hall! That large, loud clock, which tolls each dreaded hour, Those gates and locks, and all those signs of power: It is a prison with a milder name, Which few inhabit without dread or shame.— Alas! their sorrows in their bosoms dwell; They've much to suffer, but have naught to tell: They have no evil in the place to state, And dare not say, it is the house they hate: They own there's granted all such place can give, But live repining,-for 'tis there they live! Grandsires are there, who now no more must see, No more must nurse upon the trembling knee, The lost, loved daughter's infant progeny ! Like death's dread mansion, this allows not place For joyful meetings of a kindred race. Is not the matron there, to whom the son Was wont at each declining day to run; He (when his toil was over) gave delight, By lifting up the latch, and one "Good night?" Yes she is here; but nightly to her door The son, still labouring, can return no more. Widows are here, who in their huts were left, Of husbands, children, plenty, ease, bereft; Yet all that grief within the humble shed Was soften'd, soften'd in the humble bed: But here, in all its force, remains the grief, And not one softening object for relief. Who can, when here, the social neighbour meet? Who learn the story current in the street? Who to the long-known intimate impart Facts they have learn'd, or feelings of the heart? Some, champions for the rights that prop the crown, WILLIAM SOTHEBY. MR. SOTHEBY was born in London in the autumn of 1757. He was educated at Harrow, and on entering his eighteenth year he followed the example of his father, a colonel in the Guards, by purchasing a commission in the Tenth Dragoons. In 1780 he quitted the army, and bought a beautiful seat near Southampton, where for a considerable period he devoted his time to the study of the classics and the cultivation of poetry. On removing to London in 1798 he was elected a member of the Royal Society, and soon after published his translation of WIELAND's Oberon. In 1816 he visited the Continent, and while abroad ROME. I SAW the ages backward roll'd, The scenes long past restore : Scenes that Evander bade his guest behold, When first the Trojan stept on Tiber's shoreThe shepherds in the forum pen their fold; And the wild herdsman, on his untamed steed, Goads with prone spear the heifer's foaming speed, Where Rome, in second infancy, once more Sleeps in her cradle. But-in that drear waste, In that rude desert, when the wild goat sprung From cliff to cliff, and the Tarpeian rock Lour'd o'er the untended flock, And eagles on its crest their aërie hung: And when fierce gales bow'd the high pines, when blazed The lightning, and the savage in the storm Some unknown godhead heard, and awe-struck, gazed On Jove's imagined form : And in that desert, when swoln Tiber's wave The spirit of her blood, As o'er them seen to breathe With fond reverted neck she hung, And lick'd in turn each babe, and form'd with fostering tongue : And when the founder of imperial Rome And hung in triumph round his straw-thatch'd roof And tower'd in giant strength, and sent afar wrote the series of poems subsequently published under the general title of Italy, which is the best of his numerous productions. The last of his works was a translation of Homer, commenced after he had entered upon his seventieth year. He died in London on the thirtieth of December, 1833. Mr. SOTHEBY was a man of rare scholarship, deeply imbued with the spirit of classical literature, and his numerous writings, consisting of translations from the Greek, Latin, and German, and original English poems, ill deserve the neglect to which they have recently been consigned. And when the shepherds left their peaceful fold, Then might be seen by the presageful eye And temples roof'd with gold. And in the gloom of that remorseless time, And though slow ages roll'd their course between, His war-worn legions on, Troubling the pastoral stream of peaceful Rubicon. On their polluted temple; who but thou, The love-lute, and the viol, song, and mirth, A voice borne back on every passing wind, One voice, as from the lip of human kind, Rome! thou art doom'd to perish, and thy days, Like mortal man's, are number'd: number'd all, Ere each fleet hour decays. Though pride yet haunt thy palaces, though art Thy sculptured marbles animate; [gate; Though thousands and ten thousands throng thy Though kings and kingdoms with thy idol mart Yet traffic, and thy throned priest adore: Thy second reign shall pass,-pass like thy reign of yore. Farewell!-o'er many a realm I go, My natal isle to greet, Where summer sunbeams mildly glow, And sea-winds health and freshness blow O'er freedom's hallow'd seat. Yet there, to thy romantic spot Shall fancy oft retire, And hail the bower, the stream, the grot, Where earth's sole lord the world forgot, And Horace smote the lyre. TIVOLI. SPIRIT! who lovest to live unseen, By brook or pathless dell, Where wild woods burst the rocks between, And floods, in streams of silver sheen, Gush from their flinty cell! Or where the ivy waves her woof, And climbs the crag alone, Shield me from summer's blaze of day, Till twilight spreads her veil. Then guide me where the wandering moon And echoes at night's solemn noon The peaceful waterfall. Again they float before my sight The bower, the flood, the glade; Down the steep cliff I wind my way Along the dim retreat, And, 'mid the torrents' deafening bray And issuing forth from night, Fresh flowers my path perfume, Thou grove, thou glade of Tivoli, Dark flood, and rivulet clear, That wind, where'er you wander by, Of music on the ear: And thou, that, when the wandering moon Illumed the rocky dell, Didst to my charmed ear attune The echoes of night's solemn noon- THE GROTTO OF EGERIA. CAN I forget that beauteous day, When, shelter'd from the burning beam, First in thy haunted grot I lay, And loosed my spirit to its dream, The stone its roots had writhed in twain? Stranger! that roam'st in solitude! Where the cool gret's dark arch o'ershades Drop after drop, one after one, Thou, too, if e'er thy youthful ear Shalt hail the nymph that held the wave; A goddess, who there deigned to meet A mortal from Rome's regal seat, And, o'er the gushing of her fount, Mysterious truths divine to earthly ear recount. WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES. him -"like the murmuring WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES was born at King's harmonious," whose sadness always soothed Sutton in Northampshire, a village of which his father was vicar, in September, 1762. He took his degree of Master of Arts in 1792 at Trinity College, Oxford, where he obtained the chancellor's prize for a Latin poem on the Siege of Gibraltar. He soon after entered into holy orders, and was appointed to a curacy in Wiltshire, from which he was promoted to the living of Dumbledon in Gloucestershire, and finally, in 1803, to the prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral. We believe he is still living on the rectory of Bremhill, Wilts, where for many years he performed the duties of his office with industrious zeal, and was much loved and respected for his piety, amenity, and genius. The first publication of Mr. BOWLES, was a collection of Sonnets, printed in 1789. They were well received, and COLERIDGE speaks of himself as having been withdrawn from perilous errors by the "genial influence of a style of poetry so tender and yet so manly, so natural and real, and yet so dignified and Of wild bees in the sunny showers of Spring." He subsequently published "Verses to John Howard on his State of the Prisons and Lazarettos,” “ Hope,' ," "Coombe Ellen," "St. Michael's Mount," "A Collection of Poems" in four volumes, "The Battle of the Nile," "The Sorrows of Switzerland," "The Missionary," "The Grave of the Last Saxon," "The Spirit of Discovery by Sea," (the longest and best of his works,) "The Little Villager's Verse Book," and "Scenes and Shadows of Days Departed," which appeared in 1837. He was at one time better known as a critic than as a poet, from his celebrated controversy with BYRON, and others, on the writings of POPE and the "invariable principles" of poetry. The sonnets of Mr. BowLES are doubtless superior to his other productions, but even they were never generally popular. He is always elegant and chaste, and sometimes tender, but has little imagination or earnestness. DISCOVERY OF MADEIRA. SHE left The Severn's side, and fled with him she loved Of the low-thoughted throng, that place in wealth Of maiden innocence, thy smile of youth, thine eyes Perish his treasure with him! Haste with me, At times,) and smiles that like the lightning play'd |