passages, and even his eloquent and splendid versification, for want of variety of cadence, becomes monotonous and fatiguing. There is no repose, no cessation from the glare of his bold images, his compound epithets, and high-toned melody. He had attained to rare perfection in the mechanism of poetry, but wanted those impulses of soul and sense, and that guiding taste which were required to give it vitality, and direct it to its true objects.

Invocation to the Goddess of Botany.

From the Botanic Garden.

'Stay your rude steps! whose throbbing breasts infold
The legion-fiends of glory and of gold!
Stay, whose false lips seductive simpers part,
While cunning nestles in the harlot heart!
For you no dryads dress the roseate bower,
For you no nymphs their sparkling vases pour;
Unmarked by you, light graces swim the green,
And hovering Cupids aim their shafts unseen.

'But thou whose mind the well-attempered ray
Of taste and virtue lights with purer day;
Whose finer sense with soft vibration owns
With sweet responsive sympathy of tones;
So the fair flower expands its lucid form
To meet the sun, and shuts it to the storm;
For thee my borders nurse the fragrant wreath,
My fountains murmur, and my zephyrs breathe;
Slow slides the painted snail, the gilded fly
Smooths his fine down, to charm thy curious eye;
On twinkling fins my pearly pinions play,
Or win with sinuous train their trackless way;
My plumy pairs in gay embroidery dressed,
Form with ingenious bill the pensile nest,
To love's sweet notes attune the listening dell,
And Echo sounds her soft symphonious shell.

'And if with thee some hapless maid should stray,
Disastrous love companion of her way,
Oh, lead her timid steps to yonder glade,
Whose arching cliffs depending alders shade;
Where, as meek evening wakes her temperate breeze,
And moonbeams glitter through the trembling trees,
The rills that gurgle round shall soothe her ear,
The weeping rocks shall number tear for tear;
There, as sad Philomel, alike forlorn,
Sings to the night from her accustomed thorn;
While at sweet intervals each falling note
Sighs in the gale and whispers round the grot,
The sister woe shall calm her aching breast,
And softer slumbers steal her cares to rest.

Winds of the north! restrain your icy gales Nor chill the bosom of these happy vales! Hence in dark heaps, ye gathering clouds, revolve! Disperse, ye lightnings, and ye mists, dissolve ! Hither, emerging from yon orient skies, Botanic goddess, bend thy radiant eyes; O'er these soft scenes assume thy gentle reign, Pomona, Ceres, Flora in thy train; O'er the still dawn thy placid smile effuse, And with thy silver sandals print the dews; In noon's bright blaze thy vermeil vest unfold, And wave thy emerald banner starred with gold.' Thus spoke the genius as he stept along, And bade these lawns to peace and truth belong; Down the steep slopes he led with modest skill The willing pathway and the truant rill, Stretched o'er the marshy vale yon willowy mound, Where shines the lake amid the tufted ground; Raised the young woodland, smoothed the wavy green, And gave to beauty all the quiet scene. She comes! the goddess! through the whispering air, Bright as the morn descends her blushing car; Each circling wheel a wreath of flowers entwines, And, gemmed with flowers, the silken harness shines;

The golden bits with flowery studs are decked,
And knots of flowers the crimson reins connect.
And now on earth the silver axle rings,
And the shell sinks upon its slender springs;
Light from her airy seat the goddess bounds,
And steps celestial press the pansied grounds.
Fair Spring advancing calls her feathered quire,
And tunes to softer notes her laughing lyre;
Bids her gay hours on purple pinions move,
And arms her zephyrs with the shafts of love.

Destruction of Sennacherib's Army by a Pestilential Wind.

From the Economy of Vegetation.

From Ashur's vales when proud Sennacherib trod,
Poured his swoln heart, defied the living God,
Urged with incessant shouts his glittering powers,
And Judah shook through all her massy towers;
Round her sad altars press the prostrate crowd,
Hosts beat their breasts, and suppliant chieftains
bowed;

Loud shrieks of matrons thrilled the troubled air,
And trembling virgins rent their scattered hair;
High in the midst the kneeling king adored,
Spread the blaspheming scroll before the Lord,
Raised his pale hands, and breathed his pausing sighs,
And fixed on heaven his dim imploring eyes.
'O mighty God, amidst thy seraph throng
Who sit'st sublime, the judge of right and wrong;
Thine the wide earth, bright sun, and starry zone,
That twinkling journey round thy golden throne;
Thine is the crystal source of life and light,
And thine the realms of death's eternal night.
O bend thine ear, thy gracious eye incline,
Lo! Ashur's king blasphemes thy holy shrine,
Insults our offerings, and derides our vows.
O strike the diadem from his impious brows,
Tear from his murderous hand the bloody rod,
And teach the trembling nations "Thou art God!"'
Sylphs! in what dread array with pennons broad,
Onward ye floated o'er the ethereal road;
Called each dank steam the reeking marsh exhales,
Contagious vapours and volcanic gales;
Gave the soft south with poisonous breath to blow,
And rolled the dreadful whirlwind on the foe!
Hark! o'er the camp the venomed tempest sings,
Man falls on man, on buckler, buckler rings;
Groan answers groan, to anguish, anguish yields,
And death's loud accents shake the tented fields!
High rears the fiend his grinning jaws, and wide
Spans the pale nations with colossal stride,
Waves his broad falchion with uplifted hand,
And his vast shadow darkens all the land.

Death of Eliza at the Battle of Minden.
From the Loves of the Plants.

Now stood Eliza on the wood-crowned height,
O'er Minden's plain, spectatress of the fight;
Sought with bold eye amid the bloody strife
Her dearer self, the partner of her life;
From hill to hill the rushing host pursued,
And viewed his banner, or believed she viewed.
Pleased with the distant roar, with quicker tread,
Fast by his hand one lisping boy she led ;
And one fair girl amid the loud alarm
Slept on her kerchief, cradled by her arm;
While round her brows bright beams of Honour dart,
And Love's warm eddies circle round her heart.
Near and more near the intrepid beauty pressed,
Saw through the driving smoke his dancing crest;
Saw on his helm, her virgin hands inwove,
Bright stars of gold, and mystic knots of love;
Heard the exulting shout, They run! they run!'
'Great God!' she cried, 'he 's safe! the battle's won!'

A ball now hisses through the airy tides-
Some fury winged it, and some demon guides!-
Parts the fine locks her graceful head that deck,
Wounds her fair ear, and sinks into her neck;
The red stream, issuing from her azure veins,
Dyes her white veil, her ivory bosom stains.
Áh me!' she cried, and sinking on the ground,
Kissed her dear babes, regardless of the wound ;
'O cease not yet to beat, thou vital urn!
Wait, gushing life, O wait my love's return!'
Hoarse barks the wolf, the vulture screams from
far!

The angel Pity shuns the walks of war!

O spare, ye war-hounds, spare their tender age;
On me, on me,' she cried, exhaust your rage
Then with weak arms her weeping babes caressed,
And, sighing, hid them in her blood-stained vest.
From tent to tent the impatient warrior flies,
Fear in his heart, and frenzy in his eyes;
Eliza's name along the camp he calls,
'Eliza' echoes through the canvas walls;

Quick through the murmuring gloom his footsteps tread,

O'er groaning heaps, the dying and the dead,
Vault o'er the plain, and in the tangled wood,
Lo! dead Eliza weltering in her blood!
Soon hears his listening son the welcome sounds,
With open arms and sparkling eye he bounds:

Speak low,' he cries, and gives his little hand,
'Mamma's asleep upon the dew-cold sand ;'
Poor weeping babe, with bloody fingers pressed,
And tried with pouting lips her milkless breast;
'Alas! we both with cold and hunger quake-
Why do you weep?-Mamma will soon awake.'
'She'll wake no more!' the hapless mourner cried,
Upturned his eyes, and clasped his hands and sighed;
Stretched on the ground, a while entranced he lay,
And pressed warm kisses on the lifeless clay;
And then upsprung with wild convulsive start,
And all the father kindled in his heart;

'O heavens !' he cried, my first rash vow forgive ;
These bind to earth, for these I pray to live!'
Round his chill babes he wrapped his crimson vest,
And clasped them sobbing to his aching breast.*

Song to May. From the 'Loves of the Plants.

Born in yon blaze of orient sky,

Sweet May! thy radiant form unfold; Unclose thy blue voluptuous eye, And wave thy shadowy locks of gold.

For thee the fragrant zephyrs blow,

For thee descends the sunny shower;
The rills in softer murmurs flow,

And brighter blossoms gem the bower. Light graces decked in flowery wreaths

And tiptoe joys their hands combine; And Love his sweet contagion breathes, And, laughing, dances round thy shrine. Warm with new life, the glittering throng On quivering fin and rustling wing, Delighted join their votive song,

And hail thee Goddess of the spring!

*Those who have the opportunity may compare this death-scene (much to the advantage of the living author) with that of Gertrude of Wyoming, which may have been suggested, very remotely and quite unconsciously, by Darwin's Eliza. Sir Walter Scott excels in painting battle-pieces, as overseen by some interested spectator. Eliza at Minden is circumstanced so nearly like Clara at Flodden, that the mighty Minstrel of the North may possibly have caught the idea of the latter from the Lichfield botanist; but oh, how has he triumphed 1-Montgomery's Lectures on Poetry,

1833.

Song to Echo.-From the same.

Sweet Echo! sleeps thy vocal shell,
Where this high arch o'erhangs the dell ;
While Tweed, with sun-reflecting streams,
Checkers thy rocks with dancing beams?

Here may no clamours harsh intrude,
No brawling hound or clarion rude;
Here no fell beast of midnight prowl,
And teach thy tortured cliffs to howl.

Be thine to pour these vales along
Some artless shepherd's evening song;
While night's sweet bird from yon high spray
Responsive listens to his lay.

And if, like me, some love-lorn maid
Should sing her sorrows to thy shade,
Oh! soothe her breast, ye rocks around,
With softest sympathy of sound.

MISS SEWARD.

A

ANNA SEWARD (1747-1809) was the daughter of the Rev. Mr Seward, canon-residentiary of Lichfield, himself a poet, and one of the editors of Beaumont and Fletcher. This lady was early trained to a taste for poetry, and, before she was nine years of age, she could repeat the first three books of Paradise Lost. Even at this time she says, she was charmed with the numbers of Milton. Miss Seward wrote several elegiac poems-an Elegy to the Memory of Captain Cook, a Monody on the Death of Major André, &c.-which, from the popular nature of the subjects, and the animated though inflated style of the composition, enjoyed great celebrity. Darwin complimented her as the inventress of epic elegy;' and she was known by the name of the Swan of Lichfield. poetical novel, entitled Louisa, was published by Miss Seward in 1782, and passed through several editions. After bandying compliments with the poets of one generation, Miss Seward engaged Sir Walter Scott in a literary correspondence, and bequeathed to him for publication three volumes of her poetry, which he pronounced execrable. At the same time she left her correspondence to Constable, and that publisher gave to the world six volumes of her letters. Both collections were unsuccessful. The applauses of Miss Seward's early admirers were only calculated to excite ridicule, and the vanity and affectation which were her besetting sins, destroyed equally her poetry and prose. Some of her letters, however, are written with spirit and discrimination.

THE ROLLIAD.

A series of political satires, commencing about 1784, and written by a few men of wit and fashion, attracted much attention, and became extensively popular. They appeared first in a London newspaper, the earliest-from which the name of the collection was derived-being a satire on Colonel, afterwards Lord Rolle. The Rolliad-consisting of pretended criticism on an imaginary epic poem -was followed by Probationary Odes for the Laureateship, and Political Eclogues. The design of the Probationary Odes was probably suggested by Pope's ridicule of Cibber; and the death of Whitehead, the poet-laureate, in 1785, was seized

upon by the Whig wits as affording an opportunity for satirising some of the political and literary characters of the day, conspicuous as members or supporters of the government. Pitt, Dundas, Jenkinson (Lord Liverpool), Lord Thurlow, Kenyon, Sir Cecil Wray, Dr Prettyman (afterwards Bishop of Winchester), and others, were the objects of these humorous sallies and personal invectives; while among literary men, Thomas Warton, Sir John Hawkins, and Macpherson (the translator of Ossian), were selected for attack. The contributors to this gallery of burlesque portraits and clever caricatures were: 1. DR LAURENCE (called "French Laurence') the friend of Burke, who was the chief editor or director of the satires: he died in 1809. 2. GENERAL RICHARD FITZPATRICK | (1747-1813), a brother of the last Earl of Upper Ossory, who was long in parliament, and held successively the offices of Secretary-at-war and Irish Secretary. Fitzpatrick was the intimate friend of Charles James Fox-a fact recorded on his tomb and his quatrain on that eminent statesman may be quoted as remarkable for condensed and happy expression :

A patriot's even course he steered,

'Mid faction's wildest storms unmoved; By all who marked his mind revered,

By all who knew his heart beloved.

3. RICHARD TICKELL, the grandson of Addison's friend, and the brother-in-law of Sheridan, besides his contributions to the Rolliad, was author of The Wreath of Fashion and other poetical pieces, and of a lively political pamphlet entitled Anticipation, 1778. Tickell was a commissioner of stamps; he was a great favourite in society; yet in a moment of despondency he threw himself from a window in Hampton Court Palace, November 4, 1793, and was killed on the spot. 4. JOSEPH RICHARDSON (1758-1803) was author of a comedy, called The Fugitive, and was partner with Sheridan in Drury Lane Theatre. Among the other contributors to the Rolliad were LORD JOHN TOWNSEND (1757-1833); Mr GEORGE ELLIS, the poetical antiquary and friend of Scott; SIR R. ADAIR; and GENERAL BURGOYNE, author of some dramatic pieces. All these were gay, fashionable, and somewhat hard-living men, whose political satire and malice, as Moore has remarked, 'from the fancy with which it is mixed up, like certain kinds of fireworks, explodes in sparkles.' Some of their sallies, however, are coarsely personal, and often irreverent in style and allusion. The topics of their satire are now in a great measure forgotten -superseded by other party-men and partymeasures; and the very qualities which gave it immediate and splendid success, have sunk it sooner in oblivion.

Character of Mr Pitt.

Pert without fire, without experience sage,

Nor rum-contractors think his speech too long,
While words, like treacle, trickle from his tongue.
O soul congenial to the souls of Rolles !—
Whether you tax the luxury of coals,
Or vote some necessary millions more
To feed an Indian friend's exhausted store.
Fain would I praise-if I like thee could praise-
Thy matchless virtue in congenial lays.
Crit. on the Rolliad, No. 2.

WILLIAM GIFFORD.

WILLIAM GIFFORD, a poet, translator, and critic, afforded a remarkable example of successful application to science and literature under the most unfavourable circumstances. He was born at Ashburton, in Devonshire, in April 1756. His father had been a painter and glazier, but both the parents of the poet died when he was young; and after some little education, he was, at the age of thirteen, placed on board a coasting-vessel by his godfather, a man who was supposed to have benefited himself at the expense of Gifford's parents. It will be easily conceived,' he says, 'that my life was a life of hardship. I was not only “a shipboy on the high and giddy mast," but also in the cabin, where every menial office fell to my lot; yet if I was restless and discontented, I can safely say it was not so much on account of this, as of my being precluded from all possibility of reading : as my master did not possess, nor do I recollect seeing, during the whole time of my abode with him, a single book of any description, except the Coasting Pilot.' Whilst thus pursuing his life of a cabin-boy, Gifford was often seen by the fishwomen of his native town running about the beach in a ragged jacket and trousers. They mentioned this to the people of Ashburton, and never without commiserating his change of condition. This tale, often repeated, awakened at length the pity of the auditors, and as the next step, their resentment against the man who had reduced him to such a state of wretchedness. His godfather was on this account induced to recall him from the sea, and put him again to school. He made rapid progress, and even hoped to succeed his old and infirm schoolmaster. In his fifteenth year, however, his godfather, conceiving that he had got learning enough, and that his own duty towards him was fairly discharged, put him apprentice to a shoemaker. Gifford hated his new profession with a perfect hatred. At this time he possessed but one book in the world, and that was a treatise on algebra, of which he had no knowledge; but meeting with Fenning's Introduction, he mastered both works. This was not done,' he states, 'without difficulty. I had not a farthing on earth, nor a friend to give me one: pen, ink, and paper, therefore-in despite of the flippant remark of Lord Orford-were, for the most part, as completely out of my reach as a crown and sceptre. There was indeed a resource, but the utmost caution and secrecy were necessary in applying

sible, and wrought my problems on them with a blunted awl for the rest, my memory was tenacious, and I could multiply and divide by it to a great extent.' He next tried poetry, and some of his lamentable doggerel' falling into the hands of Mr Cookesley, a benevolent surgeon of Ashburton, that gentleman set about a subscription for purchasing the remainder of the time of his

19

apprenticeship, and enabling him to procure a better education. The scheme was successful; and in little more than two years, Gifford had made such extraordinary application, that he was pronounced fit for the university. The place of Biblical Lecturer was procured for him at Exeter College, and this, with such occasional assistance from the country as Mr Cookesley undertook to provide, was thought sufficient to enable him to live, at least till he had taken a degree. An accidental circumstance led to Gifford's advancement. He had been accustomed to correspond on literary subjects with a person in London, his letters being inclosed in covers, and sent, to save postage, to Lord Grosvenor. One day he inadvertently omitted the direction, and his lordship, necessarily supposing the letter to be meant for himself, opened and read it. He was struck with the contents; and after seeing the writer, and hearing him relate the circumstances of his life, undertook the charge of his present support and future establishment; and, till this last could be effected to his wish, invited him to come and reside with him. These,' says the grateful scholar,' were not words of course they were more than fulfilled in every point. I did go and reside with him, and I experienced a warm and cordial reception, and a kind and affectionate esteem, that has known neither diminution nor interruption from that hour to this, a period of twenty years.' Part of this time, it may be remarked, was spent in attending the earl's eldest son, Lord Belgrave, on a tour of Europe, which must have tended greatly to inform and expand the mind of the scholar. Gifford appeared as an author in 1794. His first production was a satirical poem entitled The Baviad, which was directed against a class of sentimental poetasters of that day, usually passing under the collective appellation of the Della Cruscan School -Mrs Piozzi, Mrs Robinson, Mr Greathead, Mr Merry, Weston, Parsons, &c.-conspicuous for their affectation and bad taste, and their high-flown compliments on one another. 'There was a specious brilliancy in these exotics,' he remarks, which dazzled the native grubs, who had scarce ever ventured beyond a sheep, and a crook, and a rose-tree grove; with an ostentatious display of "blue hills," and "crashing torrents," and petrifying suns." Gifford's vigorous exposure completely demolished this set of rhymesters, who were probably the spawn of Darwin and Lichfield. Anna Matilda, Laura Maria, Edwin, Orlando, &c. sunk into instant and irretrievable contempt; and the worst of the number-a man Williams, who assumed the name of Pasquin for his 'ribald strains' was nonsuited in an action against Gifford's publisher. The satire was universally read and admired. In the present day, it seems unnecessarily merciless and severe, yet lines like the following still possess interest. The allusion to Pope is peculiarly appropriate and beautiful :

Degeneracy of Modern Literature.

Oh for the good old times! when all was new,
And every hour brought prodigies to view,
Our sires in unaffected language told
Of streams of amber and of rocks of gold:
Full of their theme, they spurned all idle art,
And the plain tale was trusted to the heart.
Now all is changed! We fume and fret, poor elves,
Less to display our subject than ourselves:

Whate'er we paint-a grot, a flower, a bird,
Heavens, how we sweat! laboriously absurd!
Words of gigantic bulk and uncouth sound,
In rattling triads the long sentence bound;
While points with points, with periods periods jar,
And the whole work seems one continued war!
Is not this sad?

F-'Tis pitiful, Heaven knows; 'Tis wondrous pitiful. E'en take the prose : But for the poetry-oh, that, my friend,

I still aspire-nay, smile not-to defend.
You praise our sires, but, though they wrote with force,
Their rhymes were vicious, and their diction coarse;
We want their strength; agreed; but we atone,
For that, and more, by sweetness all our own.
For instance-' Hasten to the lawny vale,
Where yellow morning breathes her saffron gale,
And bathes the landscape '—

P.-Pshaw; I have it here.
'A voice seraphic grasps my listening ear:
Wondering I gaze; when lo! methought afar,
More bright than dauntless day's imperial star,
A godlike form advances.'
F-You suppose

These lines perhaps too turgid; what of those?
'The mighty mother'

P.-Now, 'tis plain you sneer,
For Weston's self could find no semblance here:
Weston! who slunk from truth's imperious light,
Swells like a filthy toad with secret spite,
And, envying the fame he cannot hope,
Spits his black venom at the dust of Pope.
Reptile accursed!-O 'memorable long,
If there be force in virtue or in song,'
O injured bard! accept the grateful strain,
Which I, the humblest of the tuneful train,
With glowing heart, yet trembling hand, repay,
For many a pensive, many a sprightly lay!
So may thy varied verse, from age to age,
Inform the simple, and delight the sage.

The contributions of Mrs Piozzi to this fantastic garland of exotic verse are characterised in one felicitous couplet :

See Thrale's gay widow with a satchel roam,
And bring, in pomp, her laboured nothings home!
The tasteless bibliomaniac is also finely sketched :

Others like Kemble, on black-letter pore,
And what they do not understand, adore;
Buy at vast sums the trash of ancient days,
And draw on prodigality for praise.
These, when some lucky hit, or lucky price,
Has blessed them with The Boke of Gode Advice,
For ekes and algates only deign to seek,
And live upon a whilome for a week.

The Baviad was a paraphrase of the first satire of Persius. In the year following, encouraged by its success, Gifford produced the Maviad, an imitation of Horace, levelled at the corrupters of dramatic poetry. Here also the Della Cruscan authors who attempted dramas as well as odes and elegies-are gibbeted in satiric verse; but Gifford was more critical than just in including O'Keefe, the amusing farce-writer, among the objects of his condemnation. The plays of Kotzebue and Schiller, then first translated and much in vogue, he also characterises as 'heavy, lumbering, monotonous stupidity,' a sentence too unqualified and severe.

Gifford tried a third satire, an Epistle to Peter Pindar (Dr Wolcot), which, being founded on