than perhaps any man besides, and are only sad to have less in comparison with one another. Homer was the greater genius; Virgil, the better artist. In one we most admire the man; in the other, the work. Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding impetuosity; Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty: Homer scatters with a generous profusion; Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence: Homer, like the Nile, pours out his riches with a boundless overflow; Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a gentle and constant stream. When we behold their battles, methinks the two poets resemble the heroes they celebrate: Homer, boundless and irresistible as Achilles, bears all before him, and shines more and more as the tumult increases; Virgil, calmly daring like Æneas, appears undisturbed in the midst of the action; disposes all about him, and conquers with tranquillity. And when we look upon their machines, Homer seems like his own Jupiter in his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the heavens; Virgil, like the same power in his benevolence, counselling with the gods, laying plans for empires, and regularly ordering his whole creation. Preface to the Iliad. ROBERT BLAIR. 1699-1746. ROBERT BLAIR, the author of "The Grave," was born in 1699. But few particulars are known respecting his life. After receiving a liberal education, he travelled on the continent for further improvement, and in 1731 was ordained as a minister of the parish of Athelstaneford, in East Lothian, where he spent the remainder of his life, which was terminated by a fever, in 1746, in the forty-seventh year of his age. "The eighteenth century has produced few specimens of blank verse of so powerful and simple a character as that of the 'Grave.' It is a popular poem, not merely because it is religious, but because its language and imagery are free, natural, and picturesque. In the eye of fastidious criticism, Blair may be a homely and even a gloomy poet; but there is a masculine and pronounced character even in his gloom and homeliness, that keeps it most distinctly apart from either dryness or vulgarity. His style pleases us like the powerful expression of a countenance without regular beauty.”1 THE GRAVE. Whilst some affect the sun, and some the shade, Their aims as various as the roads they take 1 Campbell's Specimens, vol. v. p 204. Eterua, King! whose potent arm sustains The keys of bell and death.-The Grave-dread thing! Was roll'd together, or had tried his beams DEATH-DIVIDED FRIENDSHIPS. Invidious Grave! how dost thou rend in sunder I owe thee much. Thou hast deserved from me Oft have I proved the labors of thy love, Anxious to please. Oh! when my friend and I Sweet murmuring, methought the shrill-tongued thrush Mellow'd his pipe, and soften'd every note; Assumed a dye more deep; whilst every flower Vied with its fellow-plant in luxury Of dress! Oh! then the longest summer's day Seem'd too, too much in haste: still, the full heart Too exquisite to last. Of joys departed Not to return, how painful the remembrance! DEATH, THE GOOD MAN'S PATH TO ETERNAL JOY. Thrice welcome Death! That, after many a painful bleeding step, On the long-wish'd-for shore. Prodigious change! High in his faith and hopes, look how he reaches Nor shall it hope in vain: the time draws on Make up the full account; not the least atom Each soul shall have a body ready furnish'd; When the dread trumpet sounds, the slumbering dust, And every joint possess its proper place, To its first state. Nor shall the conscious soul Shall rush, with all th' impatience of a man That's new come home, and, having long been absent In pain to see the whole. Thrice-happy meeting! 'Tis but a night, a long and moonless night; JAMES THOMSON. 1700-1748. JAMES THOMSON, the author of "The Seasons," was the son of a Scotch clergyman, and was born in the year 1700. After completing his academic education at the University of Edinburgh, he entered upon the study of divi nity; but a paraphrase of one of the Psalms having been given, by the professor of divinity, to the class, Thomson's exercise was in so poetical and figurative a style as to astonish all who heard it. This incident made him resolve to quit divinity for poetry, and, after some time, he went to London, poor and friendless, to try his fortune, with the manuscript of "Winter" in his pocket. It was with difficulty he found a purchaser for it, and the price given was trifling. It was published in 1726, and after a period of neglect,' was admired and applauded, and a number of editions speedily followed. His "Summer" appeared in 1727, "Spring" in 1728, and “Autumn" in 1730. After the publication of the Seasons, he travelled on the continent with the son of the Lord Chancellor Talbot, and on his return employed himself in the composition of his various tragedies, and his poem on " Liberty." These are by no means equal to his other performances, and are now but little read. In May, 1748, he finished his "Castle of Indolence," upon which he had been laboring for years. This is the noblest effort of his genius. "To it," says Campbell, he brought not only the full nature, but the perfect art of a poet. The materials of that exquisite poem are derived originally from Tasso; but he was more immediately indebted for them to the Faerie Queene." Indeed, of all the imitations of Spenser, it is the most spirited and beautiful, both for its moral, poetical, and descriptive power. He did not long survive its publication. A violent cold, through inattention, terminated in a fever, and carried him off on the 27th of August, 1748. In nature and originality, Thomson is superior to all the descriptive poets except Cowper, and few poems in the English language have been more popular than the "Seasons." "It is almost stale to remark," observes Campbell, "the beauties of a poem so universally felt; the truth and genial interest with which he carries us through the life of the year; the harmony of succession which he gives to the casual phenomena of nature; his pleasing transition from native to foreign scenery; and the soul of exalted and unfeigned benevolence which accompanies his prospects of the creation. It is but equal justice to say that, amidst the feeling and fancy of the Seasons,' we meet with interruptions of declamation, heavy narrative, and unhappy digression." But though Thomson's merits as a descriptive poet are of the first order; though he looks with the eye which nature bestows only on a poet, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast, and attends to the minute," yet his greatest charm, and that which makes him so popular with all classes, is, that he looks also with a heart that feels for all mankind. As has been well said, "his sympathies are universal." His touching allusions to the con 1 "When Thomson published his "Winter," it lay a long time neglected, till Mr. Spense made honorable mention of it in his "Odyssey," which, becoming a popular book, made the poem universally known."-Warton. 2 "Thomson was blessed with a strong and copious fancy: he hath enriched poetry with a variety of new and original images, which he painted from nature itself, and from his own actual observa tions: his descriptions have therefore a distinctness and truth which are utterly wanting to those of poets who have only copied from each other, and have never looked abroad on the objects them selves."-Warton's Pope, 42. ditions of the poor and suffering; to the hapless state of bird and beast in winter; the description of the peasant perishing in the snow; the Siberian exile, or the Arab pilgrims, all are marked with that humanity and true feel ing which show that the poet's virtues "formed the magic of his song." The genuine impulses under which he wrote, he has expressed in one noble stanza in the "Castle of Indolence:" I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ; Through which Aurora shows her brightening face; THE LOVES OF THE BIRDS. When first the soul of love is sent abroad, And wood-lark, o'er the kind-contending throng Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind |