WILLIAM FALCONER.

1730—1770.

WILLIAM FALCONER, a Scotch sailor, born of humble parents in Edinburgh, published in 1762 his Shipwreck,-a poem which depicted an actual disaster, and introduced into literature the technicalities of seamanship.

The Shipwreck is a composition of singular merit from a man with Falconer's opportunities. The scene of the disaster is Cape Colonna (the ancient Sunium) in Greece, and the poet alludes with power and beauty to the classic objects of these shores. The characters are drawn with vigor and graphicness of lineament. The technical terms of a ship's management are interwoven with great skill into a harmonious versification; and, in his description of the storm and of the catastrophe, the poet rises into sublimity, while the whole scene is mellowed by the most amiable and tender affections of humanity. Falconer perished on board an East India merchantman, which was supposed to have foundered in the Indian Ocean.

BUT now Athenian mountains they descry, And o'er the surge Colonna frowns on high; Beside the Cape's projecting verge are placed A range of columns long by time defac'd; First planted by Devotion to sustain,

In elder times, Tritonia's sacred fane.

Foams the wild beach below with madd'ning rage,
Where waves and rocks a dreadful combat wage.
The sickly heaven, fermenting with its freight,
Still vomits o'er the main the feverish weight.

The vessel, while the dread event draws nigh,
Seems more impatient o'er the waves to fly:
Fate spurs her on:-thus issuing from afar,
Advances to the sun some blazing star;

And, as it feels th' attraction's kindling force,
Springs onward with accelerated course.

In vain the cords and axes were prepar'd, For now th' audacious seas insult the yard; High o'er the ship they throw a horrid shade, And o'er her burst in terrible cascade. Uplifted on the surge, to heaven she flies, Her shatter'd top half-buried in the skies, Then headlong plunging, thunders on the ground, Earth groans! air trembles! and the deeps resound! Her giant bulk the dread concussion feels,

And quivering with the wound, in torment reels;
So reels, convuls'd with agonizing throes,

The bleeding bull beneath the murd'rer's blows;—
Again she plunges! hark! a second shock
Tears her strong bottom on the marble rock:
Down on the vale of Death, with dismal cries,
The fated victims, shuddering, roll their eyes
In wild despair; while yet another stroke,
With deep convulsion, rends the solid oak:
Till like the mine, in whose infernal cell
The lurking demons of destruction dwell,
At length asunder torn, her frame divides,
And crashing spreads in ruin o'er the tides.

DR. JAMES BEATTIE.

1735-1803.

JAMES BEATTIE was of humble origin, being the son of a small farmer in the parish of Laurencekirk in Forfarshire, but he wrought himself up more by the sterling Christian qualities of his character, than by any attributes of the highest genius, to a most estimable position in the literary ranks of his country. "About the age of twentysix he obtained the professorship of moral philosophy in Marischal College, Aberdeen." His early poetry did not give promise of very great eminence in the art, and he himself subsequently burned every copy of the edition on which he could lay his hands. His "Minstrel," exhibiting the development of the poetical faculty in the mind of a youthful genius, is a poem of great gracefulness and elegance, and is read with delight from the scholar-like beauty and correctness of its construction, though it does not reach the higher circle of the poetical idea. The poet and philosopher, after a life of exemplary Christian usefulness, died broken-hearted under the severe pressure of domestic afflictions, in the loss of his favorite children, and the incurable insanity of his wife.