THE author of "Lacon" was educated at Cambridge, where, in 1804, being then in the twenty-fifth year of his age, he obtained a fellowship. He took orders, and was presented with the livings of Tiverton, Kew and Petersham. These, with his fellowship, produced a liberal income, but his necessities or eccentricities caused him to reside in an obscure garret, where he wrote the most celebrated of his works, "Lacon, or Many Things in Few Words." By this he acquired considerable reputation, and his disappearance soon after, on the murder of WEARE, a person with whom he was supposed to have had some gambling transactions, induced a rumour that he had been assassinated. He left England however only to avoid his creditors, and came to America. Here, under an assumed name, he reinained two years, at the end of which time he went to France, where he continued to reside for the residue of his life.

*

In Paris, he devoted himself to literature, gambling, and trade in pictures and wine. He wrote the celebrated letters in the London Morning Chronicle, signed O. P. Q., which attracted so much attention during the time of the Greek revolution, and several pamphlets on French politics and the state of Europe. He was deprived of his church livings for nonresidence, but is said to have more than supplied the loss with his cards and dice. He committed suicide, at Fontainebleau, in the summer of 1832.

The habits of Mr. COLTON, in his most prosperous days, were peculiar. A friend who visited his lodgings in London, when he was in the zenith of his reputation, describes them as the most singular and ill-furnished apartments he had ever seen. Keeping no servant, he swept his own floors, and lighted his own fires. He had but a single chair fit for use, but his closet was always stored with wines and cigars of the finest qualities, and he eceived his guests therefore without a thought

This signature was subsequently used by a letterwriter of inferior abilities. Mr. COLTON's correspondence ended we believe in 1831.

of apologies for the meanness of his rooms Notwithstanding his dissolute life, few men were ever more earnest and constant in their advocacy of virtue; and the eloquence and energy with which he delivered his public discourses, sometimes led his parishioners to think he had reformed his morals. On one occasion, he surprised his congregation by a sermon of extraordinary power, uttered with the most serious and impressive voice and gesture; but on leaving the pulpit, with gun in hand, he joined his dogs, and drove to the house of a sporting friend in the neighbourhood, to be ready for the next day's chase.

"Lacon" is doubtless a work of great merit, but the germs of many of its ideas may be found in BACON and other authors, and some of its passages are commonplace in both thought and diction. Mr. COLTON's other productions are "A Narrative of the Sampford Ghost," "Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan," poems entitled "Napoleon," "The Conflagration of Moscow," and "Hypocrisy ;" and "Modern Antiquity, and other Lyrical Pieces," published after his death. They are very unequal, and are marked sometimes by a redundancy of epithets, at others by a condensation which renders them unintelligible, and nearly always by a straining after effect and antithesis. One of the finest of his pieces is that beginning

"How long shall man's imprison'd spirit groan ?" which was written but a few weeks before he entered unbidden the presence of Him of whose laws he was so conspicuous a teacher and violator.

Mr. COLTON's political writings are anong the most powerful and original essays in the language, but they were on subjects of temporary interest, and are forgotten. No work

of its kind ever attracted more universal or

lasting regard than "Lacon;" but with a perversity of judgment not without parallel in the histories of men of genius, he regarded "Hypocrisy" as the most perfect and endur ing of his productions

THE CONFLAGRATION OF MOSCOW.

HER royal nest the Russian eagle fires, And to the wild recess-revenged-retires; Her talons unexpended lightnings arm, And high resentments all her courage warm. Tempt not, thou fiend of France! her arduous track; Ambition spurs thee on-defeat shall call thee back. False friends in rear, in front a stubborn foe, Thy caterer, famine,-and thy couch the snow: Then view that fiery cope with ghastly smile, 'Tis thy ambition's grand funereal pile.

Blaze on, ye gilded domes and turrets high, And like a furnace glow, thou trembling sky! Be lakes of fire the tyrant's sole domain, And let that fiend o'er flames and ruins reign; Doom'd, like the rebel Angel, to be shown A fiery dungeon, where he hoped a throne. Blaze on! thou costliest, proudest sacrifice E'er lit by patriot hands, or fann'd by patriot's sighs. By stubborn constancy of soul, a rock That firmly meets but to return the shock,By all that power inflicts, or slavery bearsBy all that freedom prompts, or valour daresBy all that bids the bright historic page Of Greece and Rome inspire each after ageBy all of great, that must our wonder raise In direst, worst extremities,-we praise A deed that animates, exalts, inflames A world in arms-from Tanais to the Thames! Hail! nobly daring, wisely desperate deed: Moscow is Paris, should the Gaul succeed!

Then perish temple, palace, fort, or tower That screens a foeman in this vengeful hour; Let self-devotion rule this righteous cause, And triumph o'er affections, customs, laws; With Roman daring be the flag unfurl'dThemselves they conquer'd first, and then the world. Be this the dirge o'er Moscow's mighty grave, She stood to foster, but she fell to save! Her flames like Judah's guardian pillar rose To shield her children, to confound her foes; That mighty beacon must not blaze in vain, It rouses earth, and flashes o'er the main.

The sacrifice is made, the deed is done :
Russia! thy woes are finish'd, Gaul's begun!
Soon to return-retire! There is a time
When earthly virtue must not cope with crime.
Husband thy strength, let not a life be lost,
One patriot's life is worth the Gallic host;
Unbend a while thy bow, more strongly still
To force thy shaft, and all thy quivers fill;
Crouch'd like the tiger, prescient of the prey,
Collect thy might, augmented by delay;
Still as the calm, when on her siren breast
The slumbering earthquake and the whirlwind rest.
To courage, strength to strength, cool wisdom
bring;

Nurse every nerve, and plume thy ruffled wing;
Firm, but composed,-prepared, but tranquil prove,
As the dread eagle at the throne of Jove!
Each arm provide, and engine of the war,
Till rout and havoc answer-Here we are!
And valour, steel'd by virtuous energy,
To just revenge shall utter-Come with me!

From pine-ploughed Baltic, to that ice-bound coast,
Where desolation lives, and life is lost,
Bid all thy Centaur-sons around thee close,
Suckled in storms, and cradled on the snows.
Hard as that sea of stone, that belts their strand
With marble wave, more solid than the land,
Men fiercer than their skies, inured to toil,
And as the grave tenacious of the spoil,-
Throng'd as the locust, as the lion brave,
Fleet as the pard that hies her young to save ;
Tell them their king, their father takes the field,
A host his presence-and his cause a shield!
Nor strike the blow, till all thy northern hive,
Concentering thick, for death or glory strive;
Then round the invader swarm, his death-fraught
cloud,

While the white desert girds him like a shroud,
Full on his front and rear, the battle-tide
With arm of lightning, hoof of thunder guide;
Soon shall the Gaul his transient triumph rue-
Fierce burns the victim, and the altar too!

Now sinks the blood-red sun, eclipsed by light,
And yields his throne to far more brilliant night.
Roused by the flames, the blast, with rushing sound,
Both fed and fann'd the ruin that it found.
Long stood each stately tower and column high,
And saw the molten gulf beneath them lie:
Long rear'd their heads the aspiring flames above,
As stood the giants when they warr'd with Jove,—
Conquer'd at length, with hideous crash they fall,
And one o'erwhelming havoc covers all.

Nor Etna, nor Vesuvius, though combined
In horrid league, and chafed by every wind
That from the hoarse Eolian cave is driven,
Could with such wreck astound both earth and

heaven.

Rage, elements! wreck, ravage all ye can,
Ye are not half so fierce as man to man! [mand,

Wide and more wide, self-warn'd, without com-
Gaul's awe-struck files their circling wings expand:
Through many a stage of horrors had they pass'd-
The climax this, the direst and the last;
Albeit unused o'er others' griefs to moan,
Soon shall they purchase feeling from their own.
From flank to centre, and from rear to van,
The billowing, crackling conflagration ran,-
Wraps earth in sulphurous wave, and now the skies
With tall colossal magnitude defies,-
Extends her base, while sword and spear retire,
Weak as the bulrush to the lava's ire.
Long had that circle, belted wide and far
By burnish'd helm, and bristling steel of war.
Presented hideous to the Gallic-host

One blazing sea, one adamantine coast!
High o'er their head the bickering radiance towers,
Or falls from clouds of smoke in scorching showers:
Beneath their crimson concave long they stooi
Like bordering pines, when lightning fires the woui,
And as they hemm'd that grim horizon in,
Each read in each the terrors of the scene.
Some fear'd-accusing conscience waked the fear,
The day of wrath and retribution near, [proclaim,
Deem'd that they heard that thunderous Voice
"Thou moon, tolood be turned; thou earth, te
flame!"

Red-robed destruction far and wide extends
Her thousand arms, and summons all her fiends
To glut their fill, a gaunt and ghastly brood!
Their food is carnage, and their drink is blood;
Their music, wo: nor did that feast of hell
Fit concert want,-the conquerors' savage yell—
Their groans and shrieks whom sickness, age, or
wound,

Or changeless, fearless love in fatal durance bound.
While valour sternly sighs, while beauty weeps;
And vengeance, soon to wake like Samson, sleeps,
Shrouded in flame, the imperial city low
Like Dagon's temple falls-but falls to crush the foe!
Tyrant! think not she unavenged shall burn,
Thou too hast much to suffer, much to learn:
That thirst of power the Danube but inflamed,
By Neva's cooler current may be tamed.
Triumph a little space by craft and crime,
Two foes thou canst not conquer-Truth and time.
Resistless pair! they doom thy power to fade,
Lost in the ruins that itself hath made!
Or, damn'd to fame, like Babylon to scowl
O'er wastes where serpents hiss, hyenas howl.
Forge then the links of martial law, that bind,
Enslave, imbrute, and mechanise the mind;
Indite thy conscript code with iron pen.
That cancels crime, demoralizes men;
Thy false and fatal aid to virtue lend,
And start a Washington, a Nero end;
And vainly strive to strangle in his youth.
Freedom, the Herculean son of light and truth.
Stepfather foul!-thou to his infant bed

Didst steal, and drop a changeling in his stead.
-Yes, yes,-I see thee turn thy vaunting gaze,
Where files reflect to files the o'erpowering blaze;
Rather, like Xerxes, o'er those numbers sigh,
Braver than his, but sooner doom'd to die.
Here-number only courts that death it cloys!
Here-might is weakness, and herself destroys;
Lead then thy southern myriads lock'd in steel,
Lead on! too soon their nerveless arm shall feel
Those magazines impregnable of snow,
That kill without a wound, o'erwhelm without a foe!
I see thee,-'t is the bard's prophetic eye,
Blindly presumptuous chief,—I see thee fly"!
While breathing skeletons, and bloodless dead,
Point to the thirsting foe the track you tread.
To seize was easy, and to march was plain;
Hard to retreat, and harder to retain.
Reft of thy trappings, pomp, and glittering gear,
Dearth in thy van,-destruction in thy rear,-
Like foil'd Darius, doom'd too late to know
The stern enigmas of a Scythian foe,-

Thy standard torn, while vengeful scorpions sting
The imperial bird, and cramp his flagging wing,-
The days are number'd of thy motley host,
Freedom's vain fear, oppression's vainer boast.
And lo! the Beresyna opens wide
His yawning mouth, his wintry weltering tide!
Expectant of his mighty meal, he flows

In silent ambush through his trackless snows:
There shall thy way-worn ranks despairing stand,
Like trooping spectres on the Stygian strand,
And curse their fate and thee,-and conquest sown
With retribution deep, in vain repentance man!

Thy veteran worn by wounds, and years, and toils, Pilgrim of honour in all suns and soils! By thy ambition foully tempted forth To fight the frozen rigours of the north, Above complaint, indignant at his wrongs, Curses the morsel that his life prolongs, [sigh,— Unpierced, unconquer'd sinks; yet breathes a For he had hoped a soldier's death to die. Was it for this that fatal hour he braved, When o'er the cross the conquering crescent waved? Was it for this he ploughed the western main, To weld the struggling negro's broken chain,— Faced his relentless hate, to frenzy fired; Stung by past wrongs, y present hopes inspired,— Then hurried home to lend his treacherous aid, And stain more deeply still the warrior's blade, When spoiled Iberia, roused to deeds sublime, Made vengeance virtue-clemency a crime; And 'scaped he these, to fall without a foe? The wolf his sepulchre-his shroud the snow!

"Tis morn!-but lo, the warrior-steed in vain The trumpet summons from the bloodless plain; Ne'er was he known till now to stand aloof, Still midst the slain was found his crimson hoof; And struggling still to join that well-known sound, He dies, ignobly dies, without a wound! Oft had he hailed the battle from afar, And paw'd to meet the rushing wreck of war! With reinless neck the danger oft had braved, And crush'd the foe-his wounded rider saved, Oft had the rattling spear and sword assail'd His generous heart, and had as often fail'd: That heart no more life's frozen current thaws, Brave, guiltless champion, in a guilty cause! One northern night more hideous work hath done Than whole campaigns beneath a southern sun. Spoil'd child of fortune! could the murder'd

Turk

Or wronged Iberian view thy ghastly work,
They'd sheathe the vengeful blade, and clearly see
France needs no deadlier, direr curse than thec.
War hath fed war!-such was thy dread behest,
Now view the iron fragments of the feast.
Oh, if to cause and witness others' grief
Unmoved, be firmness-thou art Stoa's chief!
Thy feil recorded boast, all Zeno said
Outdoes-"I wear my heart within my head!"-
Caught in the northern net, what darest thou dare?
Snatch might from madness? courage from despair?
If courage lend thy breast a transient ray,
"T is the storm's lightning-not the beam of day
When on thine hopes the cloud of battle lowers,
And frowns the vengeance of insulted powers;
When victory trembles in the doubtful scale,
And death deals thick and fast his iron hail;
When all is staked, and the dread hazard known,
A rising scaffold, and a falling throne!
Then, can thy dastard soul some semblance wear
Of manhood's stamp-when fear hath conquer'd
fear!

Canst thou be brave? whose dying prospects show A scene of all that's horrible in wo!

On whose ambition, long by carnage nursed, Death stamps the greatest change-the last, the

worst!

Death-to thy view most terrible of things,
Dreadful in all he takes and all he brings!
-But, King of Terrors! ere thou seize thy prey,
Point with a lingering dart to Moscow's fatal day;
Shake with that scene his agonizing frame,
And on the wreck of nations write his name!
Oh, when will conquerors from example learn,
Or truth from aught but self-experience earn?
How many Catos must be wept again!
How many Cæsars sacrificed in vain!
While Europe dozed-too aged to be taught—
The historic lesson young Columbia caught,
Enraptured hung o'er that inspiring theme,
Conn'd it by wood, by mountain, and by stream,
Till every Grecian, Roman name, the morn
Of freedom hail'd,-and Washington was born!
I see thee redden at that mighty name,
That fills the herd of conquerors with shame :
But ere we part, Napoleon! deign to hear
The bodings of thy future dark career;
Fate to the poet trusts her iron leaf,
Fraught with thy ruin-read it and be brief,-
Then to thy senate flee, to tell the tale

Of Russia's full revenge,Gaul's deep indignant wail.
-It is thy doom false greatness to pursue,
Rejecting, and rejected by, the true;
A stirling name, thrice proffered, to refuse;
And highest means pervert to lowest views;
Till fate and fortune-finding that thou 'rt still
Untaught by all their good and all their ill,
Expell'd, recall'd, reconquer'd-all in vain,—
Shall sink thee to thy nothingness again.
Though times, occasions, chances, foes and friends,
Urged thee to purest fame, by purest ends,
In this alone be great-to have withstood
Such varied, vast temptations to be good!
As hood-wink'd falcons boldest pierce the skies,
The ambition that is blindest highest flies;
And thine still waked by night, still dream'd by day,
To rule o'er kings, as these o'er subjects sway;
Nor dared thy mitred Mentor set thee right:
Thou art not Philip's son-nor he the Stagyrite!

And lo, thy dread, thy hate! the Queen of Isles,
Frowns at thy guilt, and at thy menace smiles;
Free of her treasure, freer of her blood,
She summons all the brave, the great, the good.
But ill befits her praise my partial line,
Enough for me to boast-that land is mine.-

And last, to fix thy fate and seal thy doom,
Her bugle note shall Scotia stern resume, [plume:
Shall grasp her Highland brand, her plaided bonnet
From hill and dale, from hamlet, heath, and wood,
She pours her dark, resistless battle-flood.
Breathe there a race, that from the approving hand
Of nature, more deserve, or less demand?

So skill'd to wake the lyre, or wield the sword;
To achieve great actions, or, achieved-record;
Victorious in the conflict as the truce,-
Triumphant in a Burns as in a Bruce!
Where'er the bay, where'er the laurel grows,
Their wild notes warble, and their life-blood flows.
There, truth courts access, and would all engage,
Lavish as youth-experienced as age;
Proud science there, with purest nature twined,
In firmest thraldom holds the freest mind;

While courage rears his limbs of giant orm,
Rock'd by the blast, and strengthen'd by the storm'
Rome fell;-and freedom to her craggy gien
Transferr'd that title proud-The nurse of men!
By deeds of hazard high, and bold emprize,
Train'd like their native eagle for the skies,-
Untamed by toil, nconquer'd till they 're slain;
Walls in their trenches-whirlwinds on the plain
This meed accept from Albion's grateful breath,
Brothers in arms! in victory! in death!--
Such are thy foes, Napoleon, when time
Wakes vengeance, sure concomitant of crime.
Fixed, like Prometheus, to thy rock, o'erpower'd
By force, by vulture-conscience slow devour'd;
With godlike power, but fiendlike rage, no more
To drench the world-thy reeking stage-in gore;
Fit but o'er shame to triumph and to rule;
And proved in all things-but in danger-cool;
That found'st a nation melted to thy will,
And freedom's place didst with thine image fill;
Skill'd not to govern, but obey the storm,
To catch the tame occasion, not to form;
Victorious only when success pursued,

But when thou followed'st her, as quick subdued:
The first to challenge, as the first to run;
Whom death and glory both consent to shun-
Live! that thy body and thy soul may be
Foes that can't part, and friends that can't agree.—
Live to be numbered with that common herd,
Who life's base boon unto themselves preferred,-
Live! till each dazzled fool hath understood
That nothing can be great that is not good.
And when remorse, for blood in torrents spilt,
Shall sting-to madness-conscious, sleepless guilt,
May deep contrition this black hope repel,—
Snatch me, thou future, from this present, hell!

Give me the mind that, bent on highest aim,
Deems virtue's rugged path sole path to fame;
Great things with small compares, in scale sublime,
And death with life. eternity with time:
Man's whole existence weighs, sifts nature's laws,
And views results in the embryo of their cause;
Prepared to meet, with corresponding deeds,
Events, as yet imprisoned in their seeds;
Kens, in his acorn hid, the king of trees,
And freedom's germ in foul oppression sees;
Precedes the march of time-to ponder fate,
And execute, while others meditate;
That, deaf to present praise, the servile knee
Rebukes, and says to glory-Follow me!

LIFE.

How long shall man's imprison'd spirit groan
'Twixt doubt of heaven and deep disgust of earth!
Where all worth knowing never can be known,
And all that can be known, alas! is nothing worth

Untaught by saint, by cynic, or by sage,
And all the spoils of time that load their shelves
We do not quit, but change our joys in age-
Joys framed to stifle thought, and lead us from our
selves.

To life's frail-fretted thread, and death's suspended He that the topmost stone of Babel plann'd, And he that braved the crater's boiling bedDid these a clearer, closer view command [led? Of heaven or hell, we ask, than the blind herd they Or he that in Valdarno did prolong

The night her rich star-studded page to readCould he point out, midst all that brilliant throng, His fixed and final home, from fleshy thraldom freed?

Minds that have scann'd creation's vast domain, And secrets solved, till then to sages seal'd, Whilst nature own'd their intellectual reign Extinct, have nothing known or nothing have revealed.

Devouring grave! we might the less deplore

Th' extinguish'd lights that in thy darkness dwell, Wouldst thou, from that last zodiac, one restore, That might th' enigma solve, and doubt, man's tyrant, quell.

To live in darkness-in despair to die—
Is this indeed the boon to mortals given?
Is there no port-no rock of refuge nigh? [heaven.
There is to those who fix their anchor-hope in
Turn then, O man! and cast all else aside:
Direct thy wandering thoughts to things above-
Low at the cross bow down-in that confide,
Till doubt be lost in faith, and bliss secured in love.

IRREGULAR ODE, ON THE DEATH OF LORD BYRON.

WE mourn thy wreck ;-that mighty mind
Did whirlwind passions whelm,

While wisdom waver'd, half inclined
To quit the dangerous helm;
Thou wast an argosy of cost,
Equipp'd, enrich'd in vain,

Of gods the work-of men the boast,
Glory thy port,-and doomed to gain
That splendid haven, only to be lost!
Lost, even when Greece, with conquest blest,
Thy gallant bearing hail'd ;-

Then sighs from valour's mailed breast,
And tears of beauty fail'd;

Oh! hadst thou in the battle died,

Triumphant even in death,

The patriot's as the poet's pride,

While both Minervas twined thy wreath,

Then had thy full career malice and fate defied!

What architect, with choice design,

-Of Rome or Athens styled—

Ere left a monument like thine ?

And all from ruins piled!

A prouder motto marks thy stone Than Archimedes' tomb;

He asked a fulcrum-thou demandest none,
But-reckless of past, present, and to come-
Didst on thyself depend, to shake the world—alone.'

Thine eye to all extremes and ends
And opposites could turn,
And, like the congelated lens,

Could sparkle, freeze, or burn ;-
But in thy mind's abyss profound,
As in some limbo vast,

More shapes and monsters did abound,
To set the wondering world aghast,
Than wave-worn Noah fed, or starry Tuscan found!

Was love thy lay,-Cithara rein'd

Her car, and own'd the spell!
Was hate thy theme,-that murky fiend
For hotter earth left hell!
The palaced crown, the cloister'd cowl,
Moved but thy spleen or mirth;
Thy smile was deadlier than thy scowl,

In guise unearthly didst thou roam the earth,
Screen'd in Thalia's mask,-to drug the tragic bowl!

Lord of thine own imperial sky,

In virgin "pride of place,"

Thou soared'st where others could not fly,
And hardly dared to gaze!—
The condor, thus, his pennon'd vane

O'er Cotopaxa spreads,

But should he ken the prey, or scent the slain,Nor chilling height nor burning depth he dreads, From Andes' crystal crag, to Lima's sultry plain!

Like Lucan's, early was thy tomb,

And more than Bion's mourn'd ;-
For, still, such lights themselves consume,
The brightest, briefest burn'd:-
But from thy blazing shield recoiled
Pale envy's bolt of lead;

She, but to work thy triumphs, toil'd,

And, muttering coward curses, fled ;

Thee, thine own strength alone-like matchless
Milo-foil'd.

We prize thee, that thou didst not fear
What stoutest hearts might rack,
And didst the diamond genius wear,

That tempts-yet foils-the attack.
We mourn thee, that thou wouldst not find,
While prison'd in thy clay,

-Since such there were,-some kindred mind,-
For friendship lasts through life's long day,
And doth, with surer chain than love or beauty, bind!

We blame thee, that with baleful light

Thou didst astound the world,
-A comet, plunging from its height,
And into chaos hurl'd!-
Accorded king of anarch power,

And talent misapplied:

That hid thy God, in evil hour,

Or showed Him only to deride,

[lour!

And, o'er the gifted blaze of thine own brightness,