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Lord Thurlow.

Omnes clari et nobilitati labores, fiunt tolerabileș.

All pursuits become supportable, which are illustrious and renowned.

WH

HILE thus thro' the regions of honour I fly, The lays of a Thurlow salute my keen eye; Whose numbers respectably chime on the ear, Proclaiming his lordship-poetical peer; (d)

(d) But not a peerless poet: his lordship must be content with one dignity. Kings can make peers, but there is no royal art of creating poets. Lord Thurlow composes with exquisite rapidity; his works follow each other more quickly than they are read. His lordship, however, meditates a nobler flight, which cannot be better described than in his own inimitable language and versification.

Who thus greater honour bestows on his name
Than seeking of Folly the symbol to claim;

In some lines addressed to Lord Holland, he says, "I think, my lord, to build a verse,

Which, if our language hold,

Shall through the sides of darkness pierce,

And all to time unfold,

In language of thrice golden praise

And ever dear delight,

What lives amid the Olympic ways

And in the shoreless night.”

Lord Thurlow is a devoted admirer of a certain illustrious personage, who abundantly admires himself; and he has discovered a fact concerning that said personage, of which no one but his lordship ever suspected him to be guilty: it is no less an exploit than setting the Thames on fire. We hope his lord, ship is not ironical, but in his "Carmen Britannicum, or Song of Britain, written in honour of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent," he seriously puts forth the following line,

"Thames, by thy victories, is set on fire.”

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We are quite sure his lordship does not mean this as a joké, because in another part of the same poem he traces his Royal

For the noble, when guided by fashion's dull rules, His title enrols on the tablet of fools. (e)

Highness's lineage, in a direct line from Jupiter, through Hercules, Glaucus, the Tarquins, &c. down to Azo, the son of Hugo. Now the descendant of so many heroes may fairly presume to be himself quite hero enough for setting the aforesaid river in a blaze, though we profess, notwithstanding his lordship's assertion, that we were never so fortunate as to witness the conflagration.

(e) Lord Thurlow first presented himself to the public as the extravagant panegyrist of various living characters; whom he extols, in sonnets, according to their respective degrees of rank in society, with a poetic enthusiasm that vies with the flights of the gallant Sir Philip Sidney: since which he has also favoured the literary world with a poem called Moonlight; wherein is described, with much poetic sentiment, the contemplations of a bard during that period of solemnity and repose, In this effort it is obvious that our nobleman has constantly kept Milton in view; not only by imitating the structure of his versification, but even borrowing his very images, and placing to his own account many favourite expressions scattered throughout the poems of that sublime epic writer. Upon the whole, however, the productions of Lord Thurlow indicate a considerable share of metrical energy: so that, if he cannot attain the

summit of his ambition, he nevertheless evinces the most enthusiastic love for the pursuit in which he has so meritoriously engaged. The following, as a happy specimen of his talent, may tend to convey some idea of the peculiar style of composition he adopts in eliciting the flights of his muse.

SONNET ON BEHOLDING BODIAM CASTLE, ON THE BANK

OF THE ROTHER, IN SUSSEX.

"O thou brave ruin of the passed time,
When glorious spirits shone in burning arms,
And the brave trumpet, with its sweet alarms,
Call'd Honour! at the matin hour sublime,
And the grey ev'ning; thou hast had thy prime,
And thy full vigour; and the eating harms
Of age have robb'd thee of thy warlike charms,
And plac'd thee here, an Image, in my Rhyme :
The Owl now haunts thee, and Oblivion's Plant,
The creeping Ivy, has o'er veiled thy towers;
And Rother, looking up with eye askant,

Recalling to his mind thy brighter hours,

Laments the time, when, fair and elegant,
Beauty first laugh'd from out thy joyous bowers."

The volume which contains the above specimen is however rendered of peculiar interest, by handing to the public translations from the Greek poets, which constituted the chief amusement of the deceased Lord Chancellor Thurlow during his old age, and after having weathered the season of professional

Coleridge.

Ablatum mediis opus est incudibus istud.
This work unfinish'd from the anvil came.

Now Coleridge in school of a Southey I'll note down,
Whose lays on futurity's stream will not float down;
Since ne'er can the labours of one modern scull
The sterling decrees of our fathers annul.

duties and the political burthens imposed upon him. It would be extending this note beyond the proper limits were I to descant fully upon the beauties of these performances, which are the more wonderful as being the production of extreme old age, when a recurrence to the pursuits of a juvenile period, after a life of unremitting toil, are so rarely found to exist. The translation of a chorus in Euripides possesses all the energy of youthful exuberance; and Homer's frogs and mice, as rendered into English by this nobleman, have never been surpassed, if eveu

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