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The applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade : nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide; To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame; Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride

With incense kindled at the muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev❜n these bones, from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture
deck'd,

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by the unletter'd

muse,

The place of fame and elegy supply; And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies; Some pious drops the closing eye requires : Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries; Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of the unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate.

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,

Oft have we seen him, at the peep of dawn, Brushing, with hasty steps, the dews away, 'To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 'That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, 'His listless length at noontide would he stretch, 'And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, 'Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove, Now drooping, woful wan, like one forlorn,

Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

'One morn I miss'd him on the accustom'd hill,

6 Along the heath, and near his favourite tree : 'Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.

The next with dirges due, in sad array, 'Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne:

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay, Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.'

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THE EPITAPH.

Here rests his head, upon the lap of earth,
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown;
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere :
Heaven did a recompense as largely send.
He gave to misery all he had-a tear :

He gain'd from heaven ('twas all he wish’d)— a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose) The bosom of his father and his God.

JAMES MERRICK.
BORN 1720-DIED 1766.

THIS worthy man, a divine, and the author of poems on sacred subjects, was born at Reading in 1720, and died in the same place. His devotional effusions bear the stamp of a pious mind, though his version of the Psalms is another proof of the hopelessness of an attempt in

which even Milton has failed; for who would compare Milton's version of the 8th Psalm, even with the homely sublimity of that which is used in our churches? Merrick has therefore only failed where many greater poets had failed before him—in an attempt where success was impossible :

"Show me the man that dares and sings
"Great David's verse, to British strings ;
"Sublime attempt! but bold and vain
"As building Babel's tower again."

Merrick is the author of the well-known hymn, beginning, "Placed on the verge of youth."

THE NUNC DIMITTIS.

'Tis enough-the hour is come:
Now within the silent tomb
Let this mortal frame decay,
Mingled with its kindred clay;
Since thy mercies, oft of old
By thy choice seers foretold,
Faithful now and steadfast prove,
God of truth, and God of love!
Since at length my aged eye
Sees the day-spring from on high !
Son of righteousness, to thee,
Lo! the nations bow the knee;
And the realms of distant kings
Own the healing of thy wings.
Those who death had overspread
With his dark and dreary shade,
Lift their eyes, and from afar
Hail the light of Jacob's Star;

Waiting till the promis'd ray
Turn their darkness into day.
See the beams intensely shed,
Shine o'er Sion's favour'd head!
Never may they hence remove,
God of truth and God of love!

WILLIAM COLLINS.

BORN ABOUT 1720-DIED 1756.

WILLIAM COLLINS was the son of a hatter at Chichester. His life was short and unfortunate, though no youthful English poet ever gave greater promise of genius of the highest order, than the neglected author of the Ode to Evening. The fate of Collins' early productions is not very creditable to the literary taste of his contemporaries, and is, indeed, an anomaly in poetical history.

The story of his brief and unhappy career is not a little affecting: at an early age he left his college, and went a friendless adventurer to London, conscious of great talent, and full of illusive hopes,-" with many schemes in his head and little money in his pocket."-His mind was not of a texture to bear up against the pressure of the distress which soon overtook him. His odes, now so much admired, fell dead-born from the press, and imprudence concurred with disappointment in throwing a blight over his faculties, from which he never recovered. His mental illness was something more painful and pitiable than that total alienation of mind which leaves the sufferer unconscious of his hapless condition. By the death of a relation he obtained a considerable legacy, which enabled him to try the effect of travelling, in throwing off his mental torpor. He went to France, but it was too late. On his re

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