FROM THE SAME.

SOME nymphs prefer astronomy to love; Elope from mortal man, and range above. The fair philosopher to Rowley flies, Where in a box the whole creation lies: She sees the planets in their turns advance, And scorns, Poitier, thy sublunary dance! Of Desaguliers she bespeaks fresh air; And Whiston has engagements with the fair. What vain experiments Sophronia tries! 'Tis not in air-pumps the gay colonel dies. But though to-day this rage of science reigns, (O fickle sex!) soon end her learned pains. Lo! Pug from Jupiter her heart has got, Turns out the stars, and Newton is a sot.

THE LANGUID LADY.

FROM THE SAME.

THE languid lady next appears in state, Who was not born to carry her own weight; She lolls, reels, staggers, till some foreign aid To her own stature lifts the feeble maid, Then, if ordain'd to so severe a doom, She, by just stages, journeys round the room: But, knowing her own weakness, she despairs To scale the Alps-that is, ascend the stairs. My fan let others say, who laugh at toil: Fan! hood! glove! scarf! is her laconic style; And that is spoke with such a dying fall, That Betty rather sees than hears the call: The motion of her lips, and meaning eye, Piece out th' idea her faint words deny.

THE SWEARER.

FROM THE SAME.

THALESTRIS triumphs in a manly mien; Loud is her accent, and her phrase obscene. In fair and open dealing where's the shame? What nature dares to give, she dares to name. This honest fellow is sincere and plain, And justly gives the jealous husband pain. (Vain is the task to petticoats assign'd, If wanton language shows a naked mind.) And now and then, to grace her eloquence, An oath supplies the vacancies of sense. Hark! the shrill notes transpierce the yielding air, And teach the neighbouring echoes how to swear, By Jove, is faint, and for the simple swain; She on the Christian system is profane. But though the volley rattles in your ear, Believe her dress, she's not a grenadier. If thunder's awful, how much more our dread, When Jove deputes a lady in his stead? A lady pardon my mistaken pen,

A shameless woman is the worst of men.

DR. BROWN, author of the tragedies of Athelstan and Barbarossa, and of several other works, was born at Rothbury, in Northumberland, where his father was curate. He studied at Cambridge, obtained a minor canonry and lectureship in the cathedral of Carlisle, and was afterward preferred to the living of Morland, in Westmoreland. The latter office he resigned in disgust at being rebuked for an accidental omission of the Athana

sian creed. He remained for some years in obscurity at Carlisle, till the year of the Rebellion, when he distinguished himself by his intrepidity as a volunteer at the siege of the castle. His Essay on Satire introduced him to Warburton, who exhorted him to write his Remarks on Shaftesbury's Characteristics, as well as to attempt an epic poem on the plan which Pope had sketched. Through Warburton's influence he

obtained the rectory of Horkesly, near Colchester; but his fate was to be embroiled with his patrons, and having quarrelled with those who had given him the living in Essex, he was obliged to retire upon the vicarage of St. Nicholas, at Newcastle. A latent taint of derangement had certainly made him vain and capricious; but Warburton seems not to have been a delicate doctor to his mind's disease. In one of his letters he says, Brown is here, rather perter than ordinary, but no wiser. You cannot imagine how tender they are all of his tender places, and with how unfeeling a hand I probe them." The writer of this humane sentence was one whom Brown had praised in his Estimate as the Gulliver and Colossus of a degenerate age. When his Barbarossa came out, it appears that some friends, equally tender with the Bishop of Gloucester, reproved

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him for having any connection with players. The players were not much kinder to his sore feelings. Garrick offended him deeply by a line in the prologue which he composed for his Barbarossa, alluding to its author, "Let the poor devil eat— allow him that.”

His poetry never obtained, or indeed deserved much attention; but his "Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the times" passed through seven editions, and threw the nation into a temporary ferment. Voltaire alleges that it roused the English from lethargy by the imputation of degeneracy, and made them put forth a vigour that proved victorious in the war with France. Dr. | Brown was preparing to accept of an invitation from the Empress of Russia to superintend her public plans of education, when he was seized with a fit of lunacy, and put a period to his own existence.

FROM THE TRAGEDY OF "BARBAROSSA."

ACT II.

Selim, the son of the deceased Prince of Algiers, admitted in disguise into the palace of the usurper Barbarossa, and meeting with Othman, his secret friend.

Persons-BARBAROSSA, SELIM, OTHMAN.

Bar. Most welcome, Othman. Behold this gallant stranger. He hath done The state good service. Let some high reward Await him, such as may o'erpay his zeal. Conduct him to the queen: for he hath news Worthy her ear, from her departed son; Such as may win her love-Come, Aladin ! The banquet waits our presence: festal joy Laughs in the mantling goblet; and the night, Illumined by the taper's dazzling beam, Rivals departed day. [Exeunt BAR. and ALA.

Selim. What anxious thought Rolls in thine eye, and heaves thy labouring breast? Why join'st thou not the loud excess of joy, That riots through the palace?

Oth. Darest thou tell me

On what dark errand thou art here?

Selim. I dare.

Dost not perceive the savage lines of blood
Deform my visage? Read'st not in mine eye
Remorseless fury ?-I am Selim's murderer.
Oth. Selim's murderer!
Selim. Start not from me.
My dagger thirsts not but for regal blood-
Why this amazement ?
[should be-

Oth. Amazement!-No-'Tis well-'Tis as it He was indeed a foe to Barbarossa.

Selim. And therefore to Algiers:-Was it not so? Why dost thou pause? What passion shakes thy frame?

Oth. Fate, do thy worst! I can no more dissemble!

Can I, unmoved, behold the murdering ruffian, Smear'd with my prince's blood!-Go, tell the

tyrant,

Othman defies his power; that, tired with life, He dares his bloody hand, and pleads to die. Selim. What, didst thou love this Selim?

Oth. All men loved him.

He was of such unmix'd and blameless quality,
That envy, at his praise, stood mute, nor dared
To sully his fair name! Remorseless tyrant!
Selim. I do commend thy faith. And since
thou lovest him,

I have deceived this tyrant Barbarossa:
Selim is yet alive.

Oth. Alive!

Selim. Nay more

Selim is in Algiers.

Oth. Impossible!

[hither straight.

Selim. Nay, if thou doubt'st, I'll bring him
Oth. Not for an empire!

Thou might'st as well bring the devoted lamb
Into the tiger's den.

Selim. But I'll bring him

Hid in such deep disguise as shall deride
Suspicion, though she wear the lynx's eyes.
Not even thyself couldst know him.

Oth. Yes, sure: too sure to hazard such an awful Trial!

Selim. Yet seven revolving years, worn out In tedious exile, may have wrought such change Of voice and feature in the state of youth, As might elude thine eye.

Oth. No time can blot

The memory of his sweet majestic mien,
The lustre of his eye! besides, he wears,
A mark indellible, a beauteous scar,
Made on his forehead by a furious pard,
Which rushing on his mother, Selim slew.
Selim. A scar!

Oth. Ay, on his forehead.

Selim. What! like this? [Lifting his turban. Oth. Whom do I see!-am I awake?-my

Oth. Ah, no! I see thy sire in every line.How did my prince escape the murderer's hand? Selim. I wrench'd the dagger from him, and gave back

That death he meant to bring. The ruffian wore The tyrant's signet:-"Take this ring," he cried, "The sole return my dying hand can make thee For its accursed attempt: this pledge restored, Will prove thee slain! Safe may'st thou see Algiers, Unknown to all." This said, the assassin died. Oth. But how to gain admittance thus unknown? Selim. Disguised as Selim's murderer I come: The accomplice of the deed: the ring restored, Gain'd credence to my words.

Oth. Yet ere thou camest, thy death was rumour'd here.

Selim. I spread the flattering tale, and sent it
hither,

That babbling rumour, like a lying dream,
Might make belief more easy. Tell me, Othman,
And yet I tremble to approach the theme-
How fares my mother? does she still retain
Her native greatness?

Oth. Still in vain the tyrant

Tempts her to marriage, though with impious

Nor voice, nor sound. As if the inhabitants,
Like the presaging herds, that seek the covert
Ere the loud thunder rolls, had inly felt
And shunn'd the impending uproar.

Oth. There is a solemn horror in the night, too, That pleases me: a general pause through nature: The winds are hush'd

Sadi. And as I pass'd the beach,

The lazy billow scarce could lash the shore:
No star peeps through the firmament of heaven-
Selim. And, lo! where eastward, o'er the sullen

Come, Othman, we are call'd: the passing minutes
Chide our delay; brave Othman, let us hence.
Selim. One last embrace!-nor doubt, but,
crown'd with glory,

We soon shall meet again. But, oh, remember,
Amid the tumult's rage, remember mercy!
Stain not a righteous cause with guiltless blood!
Warn our brave friends, that we unsheath the
sword,

Not to destroy, but save! nor let blind zeal,
Or wanton cruelty, e'er turn its edge
On age or innocence! or bid us strike
Where the most pitying angel in the skies,
That now looks on us from his blest abode,
Would wish that we should spare.

Oth. So may we prosper,

As mercy shall direct us!

Selim. Farewell, friends!

Sadi. Intrepid prince, farewell!

[Exeunt OTH. and SADI.

Sadi. Tis well-nigh midnight.

Oth. What-In tears, my prince?

Selim. But tears of joy: for I have seen Zaphira, And pour'd the balm of peace into her breast: Think not these tears unnerve me, valiant friends! They have but harmonized my soul; and waked All that is man within me, to disdain Peril, or death.-What tidings from the city?

Sadi. All, all is ready. Our confederate friends Burn with impatience, till the hour arrive.

Selim. What is the signal of the appointed

hour?

SELIM'S SOLILOQUY BEFORE THE INSURRECTION.

Selim. Now sleep and silence

Brood o'er the city.-The devoted sentinel
Now takes his lonely stand; and idly dreams
Of that to-morrow he shall never see!
In this dread interval, O busy thought,
From outward things descend into thyself!
Search deep my heart! bring with thee awful

conscience,

And firm resolve! that, in the approaching hour

Restraint's stiff neck, Grimace's leer,
Squint-eyed Censure's artful sneer,
Ambition's buskins, steep'd in blood,
Fly thy presence, Solitude.

Sage Reflection, bent with years,
Conscious Virtue void of fears,
Muffled Silence, wood-nymph shy,
Meditation's piercing eye,

Halcyon Peace on moss reclined,
Retrospect that scans the mind,
Rapt earth-gazing Reverie,
Blushing, artless Modesty,

Health that snuffs the morning air,
Full-eyed Truth with bosom bare,
Inspiration, Nature's child,
Seek the solitary wild.

You with the tragic muse retired,
The wise Euripides inspired,
You taught the sadly-pleasing air
That Athens saved from ruins bare.
You gave the Cean's tears to flow,
And unlock'd the springs of woe;
You penn'd what exiled Naso thought,
And pour'd the melancholy note.
With Petrarch o'er Vaucluse you stray'd,
When death snatch'd his long-loved maid;
You taught the rocks her loss to mourn,
Ye strew'd with flowers her virgin urn.
And late in Hagley you were seen,
With bloodshed eyes, and sombre mien,
Hymen his yellow vestment tore,
And Dirge a wreath of cypress wore.
But chief your own the solemn lay
That wept Narcissa young and gay,
Darkness clapp'd her sable wing,
While you touch'd the mournful string,
Anguish left the pathless wild,
Grim-faced Melancholy smiled,
Drowsy Midnight ceased to yawn,
The starry host put back the dawn,
Aside their harps even seraphs flung
To hear thy sweet Complaint, O Young!
When all nature's hush'd asleep,
Nor Love nor Guilt their vigils keep,
Soft you leave your cavern'd den,
And wander o'er the works of men;
But when Phosphor brings the dawn
By her dappled coursers drawn,
Again you to the wild retreat
And the early huntsman meet,

Where as you pensive pace along,
You catch the distant shepherd's song,
Or brush from herbs the pearly dew,
Or the rising primrose view.
Devotion lends her heaven-plumed wings,
You mount, and nature with you sings.
But when mid-day fervors glow,
To upland airy shades you go,
Where never sunburnt woodman came,
Nor sportsman chased the timid game;
And there beneath an oak reclined,
With drowsy waterfalls behind,
You sink to rest.

Till the tuneful bird of night
From the neighbouring poplars' height
Wake you with her solemn strain,
And teach pleased Echo to complain.
With you roses brighter bloom,
Sweeter every sweet perfume,
Purer every fountain flows,
Stronger every wilding grows.
Let those toil for gold who please,
Or for fame renounce their ease.
What is fame? an empty bubble.
Gold a transient shining trouble.
Let them for their country bleed,
What was Sidney's, Raleigh's meed?
Man's not worth a moment's pain,
Base, ungrateful, fickle, vain.
Then let me, sequester'd fair,
To your sibyl grot repair;
On yon hanging cliff it stands,
Scoop'd by nature's salvage hands,
Bosom'd in the gloomy shade
Of cypress not with age decay'd.
Where the owl still-hooting sits,
Where the bat incessant flits,
There in loftier strains I'll sing
Whence the changing seasons spring,
Tell how storms deform the skies,
Whence the waves subside and rise,
Trace the comet's blazing tail,
Weigh the planets in a scale;
Bend, great God, before thy shrine,
The bournless macrocosm's thine.

WAS of an ancient family in Nottinghamshire, and possessed the estate of Thurgarton Priory, where he exercised the active and useful duties of a magistrate. He resided, however, occasionally in London, and was a great promoter of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Manu

factures. He died at his house in May-Fair, after a long and excruciating illness, occasioned by the stone. He was a zealous pupil of the Shaftesbury school; and published, besides his Poems, a Life of Socrates, Letters on Taste, and Epistles to the Great from Aristippus in retirement.

FROM "LOCHLEVEN.”

Now sober Industry, illustrious power! Hath raised the peaceful cottage, calm abode Of innocence and joy; now, sweating, glides The shining ploughshare; tames the stubborn soil;

Leads the long drain along th' unfertile marsh; Bids the bleak hill with vernal verdure bloom, The haunt of flocks; and clothes the barren heath With waving harvests, and the golden grain.

Fair from his hand, behold the village rise, In rural pride, 'mong intermingled trees! Above whose aged tops, the joyful swains At even-tide, descending from the hill, With eye enamour'd, mark the many wreaths Of pillar'd smoke, high-curling to the clouds. The street resounds with labour's various voice, Who whistles at his work. Gay on the green, Young blooming boys, and girls with golden hair, Trip nimble-footed, wanton in their play, The village hope. All in a rev'rend row, Their gray-hair'd grandsires, sitting in the sun, Before the gate, and leaning on the staff, The well-remember'd stories of their youth Recount, and shake their aged locks with joy.

How fair a prospect rises to the eye,
Where beauty vies in all her vernal forms,
For ever pleasant, and for ever new!
Swells the exulting thought, expands the soul,
Drowning each ruder care: a blooming train
Of bright ideas rushes on the mind.
Imagination rouses at the scene,

And backward, through the gloom of ages past,
Beholds Arcadia, like a rural queen,
Encircled with her swains and rosy nymphs,
The mazy dance conducting on the green.
Nor yield to old Arcadia's blissful vales
Thine, gentle Leven! green on either hand
Thy meadows spread, unbroken of the plough,
With beauty all their own. Thy fields rejoice
With all the riches of the golden year.
Fat on the plain, and mountain's sunny side,
Large droves of oxen, and the fleecy flocks
Feed undisturb'd, and fill the echoing air
With music grateful to the master's ear:
The traveller stops, and gazes round and round
O'er all the scenes, that animate his heart
With mirth and music. Even the mendicant,
Bowbent with age, that on the old gray stone,
Sole sitting, suns him in the public way,
Feels his heart leap, and to himself he sings.

DR. JAMES GRAINGER, the translator of Tibullus, was for some time a surgeon in the army; he afterward attempted, without success, to obtain practice as a physician in London, and finally settled in St. Kitt's, where he married the governor's daughter. The novelty of West Indian

scenery inspired him with the unpromising subject of the Sugar-cane, in which he very poetically dignifies the poor negroes with the name of "Swains." He died on the same island, a victim to the West Indian fever.

ODE TO SOLITUDE.

O SOLITUDE, romantic maid!

Whether by nodding towers you tread,
Or haunt the desert's trackless gloom,
Or hover o'er the yawning tomb,
Or climb the Andes' clifted side,
Or by the Nile's coy source abide,
Or starting from your half-year's sleep
From Hecla view the thawing deep,
Or, at the purple dawn of day,
Tadmor's marble wastes survey,‡

[See Prior's Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. p. 237.]

+ If Grainger has invoked the Muse to sing of rats, and metamorphosed, in Arcadian phrase, negro slaves into swains, the fault is in the writer not in the topic. The arguments which he has prefixed are indeed ludicrously flat and formal.-SOUTHEY, Quar. Rev. vol. xi. p. 489. Dr. Grainger's Sugar-cane is capable of being rendered a good poem.-SHENSTONE, Works, vol. iii. p. 343.]

Johnson praised Grainger's Ode to Solitude, and repeated with great energy the exordium, observing, "This, sir, is very noble."-CROKER'S Bxwell, vol. iv. p. 50.

What makes the poetry in the image of the marble waste of Tadmor, in Grainger's "Ode to Solitude," so much admired by Johnson? Is it the marble or the waste, the

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You, recluse, again I woo,
And again your steps pursue.

Plumed Conceit himself surveying,
Folly with her shadow playing,
Purse-proud, elbowing Insolence,
Bloated empiric, puff'd Pretence,
Noise that through a trumpet speaks,
Laughter in loud peals that breaks,
Intrusion with a fopling's face,
(Ignorant of time and place,)
Sparks of fire Dissension blowing,
Ductile, court-bred Flattery, bowing,

artificial or the natural object? The waste is like all other wastes; but the marble of Palmyra makes the poetry of the passage as of the place.-LORD BYRON, Works, vol. vi. p. 359.

This was said by Byron in the great controversy these Specimens gave rise to between Lord Byron and Mr. Bowles the poet,-the Art and Nature squabble. Surely the poe try of the passage does not depend upon a single word:

"Tis not a lip or eye, we beauty call.

"In this fine Ode," says Percy, "are assembled some of the sublimest images in nature."-Reliques, vol. ii. p. 352.]

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