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Where never human heart appeared,

Nor e'er one straw-roofed cot was reared,
Where Nature seems to sit alone,
Majestic on a craggy throne;

Tell me the path, sweet wanderer tell,
To thy unknown sequestered cell,
Where woodbines cluster round the door,
Where shells and moss o'erlay the floor,
And on whose top a hawthorn blows,
Amid whose thickly-woven boughs
Some nightingale still builds her nest,
Each evening warbling thee to rest;
Then lay me by the haunted stream,
Wrapt in some wild poetic dream,
In converse while methinks I rove
With Spenser through a fairy grove;
Till suddenly awaked, I hear
Strange whispered music in my ear,
And my glad soul in bliss is drowned
By the sweetly-soothing sound!

Me, goddess, by the right-hand lead,
Sometimes through the yellow mead,
Where Joy and white-robed Peace resort,
And Venus keeps her festive court;

Where Mirth and Youth each evening meet, And lightly trip with nimble feet,

Nodding their lily-crowned heads,

Where Laughter rose-liped Hebe leads;
Where Echo walks steep hills among,
Listening to the shepherd's song.

Yet not these flowery fields of joy

Can long my pensive mind employ;
Haste, Fancy, from these scenes of folly,
To meet the matron Melancholy,
Goddess of the tearful eye,

That loves to fold her arms and sigh!

Let us with silent footsteps go

To charnels and the house of wo,

To Gothic churches, vaults, and tombs,
Where each sad night some virgin comes,
With throbbing breast, and faded cheek,
Her promised bridegroom's urn to seek;
Or to some abbey's mouldering towers,
Where to avoid cold winter's showers,
The naked beggar shivering lies,
Whilst whistling tempests round her rise
And trembles lest the tottering wall
Should on her sleeping infants fall.

Now let us louder strike the lyre,

For my heart glows with martial fire;

I feel, I feel, with sudden heat,

My big tumultuous bosom beat!

The trumpet's clangours pierce mine ear,

A thousand widows' shrieks I hear;

'Give me another horse,' I cry,
Lo! the base Gallic squadrons fly.
Whence is this rage? What spirit, say,
To battle hurries me away?

'Tis Fancy, in her fiery car,

Transports me to the thickest war,
There whirls me o'er the hills of slain,
Where Tumult and Destruction reign;
Where, mad with pain, the wounded steed
Tramples the dying and the dead;
Where giant terror stalks around,
With sullen joy surveys the ground,
And, pointing to the ensanguined field,
Shakes his dreadful Gorgon shield!

O guide me from this horrid scene
To high-arched walks and alleys green,
Which lovely Laura seeks, to shun
The fervours of the mid-day sun!

The pangs of absence, O! remove,
For thou canst place me near my love,
Canst fold in visionary bliss,

And let me think I steal a kiss.

When young-eyed Spring profusely throws
From her green lap the pink and rose;
When the soft turtle of the dale
To Summer tells her tender tale:
When Autumn cooling caverns seeks,
And stains with wine his jolly cheeks;
When Winter, like poor pilgrim old,
Shakes his silver beard with cold;
At every season let my ear

Thy solemn whispers, Fancy, hear.

THOMAS WARTON the younger, was born at Dunsfold, in 1728. At sixteen years of age, he entered Trinity College, Oxford, and at nineteen published his Pleasures of Melancholy, a poem which gave a promise of excellence which his more mature productions did not sustain. Having taken his degree and obtained a fellowship, Warton entered into orders, and in 1757, was appointed Professor of Poetry. He was also, about the same time, made curate of Woodstock, and rector of Kiddington, a small living near Oxford. From this period his life passed on in one even current, with only those interruptions which his occasional publications induced. The first of these publications was an elaborate Essay on Spenser's Fairy Queen. He also edited the minor poems of Milton, an edition which Leigh Hunt says 'is a wilderness of sweets, and is the only one in which a true lover of the original can pardon an exuberance of annotation.' Some of the notes are highly poetical, while others display the author's taste for antiquities, for architecture, superstition, and his intimate acquaintance with the old Elizabethan writers.

The work which forms the basis of Dr. Warton's reputation, however, is his History of English Poetry, the first volume of which appeared, in 1774,

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and the second, which brings the history down to the accession of Elizabeth, four years after. In this work Warton poured out in profusion all the treasures of a well-stored mind. His antiquarian lore, his love of antique manners, and his chivalrous feelings, found appropriate exercise in tracing the stream of English poetry from its first fountain springs, down to the luxuriant reign of Elizabeth, which he justly styled, 'the most poetic age of English annals.' The order pursued in this important work is strictly chronological; and the author, by adopting this course, allowed himself freer opportunities for research, and was enabled to exhibit without transposition, the gradual improvements of English poetry, and the progress of the language. The untiring industry and extensive learning of the poet-historian accumulated a mass of materials equally valuable and curious. His work is a vast storehouse of facts connected with early English literature; and if he sometimes wanders from his subject, or indulges in extraneous details, it should be remembered, as his late editor, Price, remarks, that new matter was constantly presenting itself before him, and that Warton was the first adventurer in the extensive region through which he journeyed, and into which the usual pioneers of literature had scarcely penetrated.' The author's plan excluded the drama, but this defect has been partially supplied by Collier's Annals of the Stage.

On the death of Whitehead, in 1785, Dr. Warton was appointed poetlaureate. His learning gave dignity to an office usually held in small esteem, and which has recently been wisely converted into a sinecure. The same year he was made Camden Professor of History. While pursuing his antiquarian and literary researches, and in the midst of health and usefulness, he was attacked with the gout, and this being immediately followed by a stroke of paralysis, his valuable life terminated on the twenty-first of May, 1790.

Dr. Warton's poetry is deficient in natural expression and general interest; but some of his longer pieces, by their martial spirit and Gothic fancy, are calculated to awaken a stirring and romantic enthusiasm in the mind of the reader. Hazlitt considered some of his sonnets the finest in the language. Of these, the following are picturesque and graceful, and are fair samples of the whole :

WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF DUGDALE'S MONASTICON.

Deem not devoid of elegance the sage,
By Fancy's genuine feelings unbeguiled
Of painful pedantry, the poring child,

Who turns of these proud domes the historic page,
Now sunk by Time, and Henry's fiercer rage.
Think'st thou the warbling muses never smiled
On his lone hours? Ingenious views engage
His thoughts on themes unclassic falsely styled
Intent. While cloistered piety displays
Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye explores

New manners, and the pomp of elder days,
Whence culls the pensive bard his pictured stores.
Not rough nor barren are the winding ways
Of hoar antiquity, but strewn with flowers.

ON REVISITING THE RIVER LODDON.

Ah! what a weary race my feet have run

Since first I trod thy banks with alders crowned,
And thought my way was all through fairy ground,
Beneath the azure sky and golden sun-

When first my muse to lisp her notes begun!
While pensive memory traces back the round
Which fills the varied interval between;

Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the scene.
Sweet native stream! those skies and suns so pure;
No more return to cheer my evening road!

Yet still one joy remains, that not obscure

Nor useless, all my vacant days have flowed

From youth's gay dawn to manhood's prime mature,
Nor with the muse's laurel unbestowed.

CHRISTOPHER SMART, an unfortunate and irregular genius, was born at Shipbourne, Kent, in 1722. His father was steward to Lord Barnard, afterwards Earl of Darlington; and after his death, which happened when his son was only eleven years of age, the patronage of his Lordship was generously continued to his family. Through the influence of that nobleman, Smart procured, from the Duchess of Cleveland, an allowance of forty pounds per annum, with which he was enabled to make ample preparation for the university. He was admitted of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1739, elected a fellow of his college in 1745, and two years after took his master's degree. At college he was chiefly remarkable for folly and extravagance, and his distinguished contemporary Gray prophesied truly that the result of his conduct would be a jail or bedlam. In the year that he was graduated he wrote a comedy, called a Trip to Cambridge, or the Grateful Fair, which was acted in Pembroke College Hall, the parlor of which was made the green-room. No remains of this play have been found, excepting a few songs and a mock-heroic soliloquy, the latter containing the following humorous simile:

Thus when a barber and a collier fight

The barber beats the luckless collier white;
The dusty collier heaves his ponderous sack,
And, big with vengeance, beats the barber black.
In comes the brick-dust man, with grime o'erspread,

And beats the collier and the barber red;

Black, red, and white, in various clouds are tossed,

And in the dust they raise the combatants are lost.

Notwithstanding his irregularities, Smart cultivated his talents, and was distinguished at the university for both his Latin and English verses. VOL. II.-2A

His

manners were remarkably agreeable, and this induced his college friends long to bear his misconduct; but their patience finally became exhausted, and they abandoned him. Having written several pieces for different periodicals published by Newberry, Smart became acquainted with the bookseller's family, and, in 1753, married his step-daughter, Miss Carnan. He now removed to London and depended entirely upon his pen for a subsistence. His knowledge of the classic languages seems to have been very profound, and one of his earliest tasks, after his settlement in the metropolis, was a metrical translation of the Fables of Phædrus, and of some of the odes of Horace. Many of the latter are extremely elegant. He also had previously translated, with success, and to Pope's entire satisfaction, the Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, into the Latin tongue. In 1756, Smart was one of the conductors of a monthly periodical called The Universal Visitor; and in order to assist him, Dr. Johnson, who sincerely sympathized with his unhappy vacillation of mind, contributed a number of essays.

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In 1763, we find the poor unfortunate poet confined in a mad-house. 'He has partly as much exercise,' says Johnson, as he used to have, for he digs in the garden. Indeed before his confinement he used for exercise to walk to the ale-house; but he was carried back again. I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people's praying for him (also falling on his knees and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place); and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it.' He was afterwards released from his confinement; but, in consequence of his intemperate habits, his ill-fortune again pursued him, and he was committed to the King's Bench prison for debt, and there, after a short illness, died in 1770.

During Smart's confinement in the mad-house, writing materials, it is said, were denied him; and he used to indent his poetical thoughts with a key on the wainscot of the walls of his apartment. A religious poem, the Song to David, written at this time in his saner moments, possesses passages of considerable power and sublimity, and must be considered as one of the greatest curiosities of English literature. What the unfortunate poet did not write down he composed and retained in his memory until it was communicated to the printer. From this poem we select the following stanzas :—

SONG TO DAVID.

O thou, that sit'st upon a throne,
With harp of high, majestic tone,
To praise the King of Kings:
And voice of heaven, ascending swell,
Which, while its deeper notes excel,
Clear as a clarion rings:

To bless each valley, grove, and coast,
And charm the cherubs to the post
Of gratitude in throngs;

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