MATTHEW GREEN was educated among the Dissenters; but left them in disgust at their precision, probably without reverting to the mother church. All that we are told of him is, that he had a post at the Custom-honse, which he discharged with great fidelity, and died at a lodging in Nag's-head court, Gracechurch-street, aged forty-one. His strong powers of mind had received little advantage from education, and were occasionally subject to depression from hypochondria; but his conversation is said to have abounded in wit and shrewdness. One day his friend Sylvanus Bevan complained to him that while he was bathing in the river he had been saluted by a waterman with the cry of "Quaker Quirl," and wondered how he should have been

known to be a Quaker without his clothes. Green replied, "by your swimming against the stream."

His poem, "the Spleen," was never published in his lifetime. Glover, his warm friend, presented it to the world after his death; and it is much to be regretted, did not prefix any account of its interesting author. It was originally a very short copy of verses, and was gradually and piecemeal increased. Pope speedily noticed its merit, Melmoth praised its strong originality in Fitzosborne's Letters, and Gray duly commended it in his correspondence with Walpole, when it appeared in Dodsley's collection. In that walk of poetry, where Fancy aspires no farther than to go hand in hand with common sense, its merit its certainly unrivalled †.

CONTENTMENT, parent of delight,
So much a stranger to our sight,
Say, goddess, in what happy place
Mortals behold thy blooming face;

[* He was a clerk in the Custom House, on, it is thought, a small salary; but the writer of this note has hunted over official books in vain for a notice of his appointment, and of obituaries for the time of his death.]

Thy gracious auspices impart,

And for thy temple choose my heart.
They, whom thou deignest to inspire,
Thy science learn, to bound desire;

[There is a profusion of wit everywhere in Green; reading would have formed his judgment and harmonized his verse, for even his wood-notes often break out into strains of real poetry and music.-GRAY.]

By happy alchemy of mind

They turn to pleasure all they find ;
They both disdain in outward mien
The grave and solemn garb of Spleen,
And meretricious arts of dress,
To feign a joy, and hide distress;
Unmoved when the rude tempest blows,
Without an opiate they repose;
And, cover'd by your shield, defy

The whizzing shafts that round them fly:
Nor meddling with the gods' affairs,
Concern themselves with distant cares;
But place their bliss in mental rest,
And feast upon the good possess'd.

Forced by soft violence of pray'r,
The blithsome goddess soothes my care,
I feel the deity inspire,

And thus she models my desire.
Two hundred pounds half-yearly paid,
Annuity securely made,

A farm some twenty miles from town,
Small, tight, salubrious, and my own;
Two maids that never saw the town,
A serving-man not quite a clown,
A boy to help to tread the mow,

And drive, while t'other holds the plough;
A chief, of temper form'd to please,
Fit to converse and keep the keys;
And better to preserve the peace,
Commission'd by the name of niece;
With understandings of a size
To think their master very wise.
May Heaven (it's all I wish for) send
One genial room to treat a friend,
Where decent cupboard, little plate,
Display benevolence, not state.
And may my humble dwelling stand
Upon some chosen spot of land:
A pond before full to the brim,

Where cows may cool, and geese may swim;
Behind, a green, like velvet neat,
Soft to the eye, and to the feet;
Where od'rous plants in evening fair
Breathe all around ambrosial air;
From Eurus, foe to kitchen ground,
Fenced by a slope with bushes crown'd,
Fit dwelling for the feather'd throng,
Who pay their quit-rents with a song ;
With op'ning views of hill and dale,
Which sense and fancy too regale,
Where the half-cirque, which vision bounds,
Like amphitheatre surrounds:

And woods impervious to the breeze,
Thick phalanx of embodied trees,
From hills through plains in dusk array
Extended far, repel the day.

Here stillness, height, and solemn shade
Invite, and contemplation aid :
Here Nymphs from hollow oaks relate
The dark decrees and will of fate,
And dreams beneath the spreading beech
Inspire, and docile fancy teach;

While soft as breezy breath of wind,
Impulses rustle through the mind:
Here Dryads, scorning Phoebus' ray,
While Pan melodious pipes away,
In measured motions frisk about,
Till old Silenus puts them out.
There see the clover, pea, and bean,
Vie in variety of green;

Fresh pastures speckled o'er with sheep,
Brown fields their fallow sabbaths keep,
Plump Ceres golden tresses wear,
And poppy top-knots deck her hair,
And silver streams through meadows stray,
And Naiads on the margin play,

And lesser Nymphs on side of hills
From plaything urns pour down the rills.

Thus shelter'd, free from care and strife,
May I enjoy a calm through life;
See faction, safe in low degree,
As men at land see storms at sea,
And laugh at miserable elves,
Not kind, so much as to themselves,
Cursed with such souls of base alloy,
As can possess, but not enjoy ;
Debarr'd the pleasure to impart
By avarice, sphincter of the heart;
Who wealth, hard earn'd by guilty cares,
Bequeath untouch'd to thankless heirs.
May I, with look ungloom'd by guile,
And wearing virtue's liv'ry-smile,
Prone the distressed to relieve,
And little trespasses forgive,
With income not in fortune's power,
And skill to make a busy hour,
With trips to town life to amuse,
To purchase books, and hear the news,
To see old friends, brush off the clown,
And quicken taste at coming down,
Unhurt by sickness' blasting rage,
And slowly mellowing in age.
When Fate extends its gathering gripe,
Fall off like fruit grown fully ripe,
Quit a worn being without pain,
Perhaps to blossom soon again.

But now more serious see me grow, And what I think, my Memmius, know.

Th' enthusiast's hope, and raptures wild, Have never yet my reason foil'd. His springy soul dilates like air, When free from weight of ambient care, And, hush'd in meditation deep, Slides into dreams, as when asleep ; Then, fond of new discoveries grown, Proves a Columbus of her own, Disdains the narrow bounds of place, And through the wilds of endless space, Borne up on metaphysic wings, Chases light forms and shadowy things, And, in the vague excursion caught, Brings home some rare exotic thought.

The melancholy man such dreams,
As brightest evidence, esteems;
Fain would he see some distant scene
Suggested by his restless Spleen,
And Fancy's telescope applies
With tinctured glass to cheat his eyes.
Such thoughts, as love the gloom of night,
I close examine by the light;

For who, though bribed by gain to lie,
Dare sunbeam-written truths deny,
And execute plain common sense
On faith's mere hearsay evidence?

That superstition mayn't create,
And club its ills with those of fate,
I many a notion take to task,
Made dreadful by its visor-mask.
Thus scruple, spasm of the mind,
Is cured, and certainty I find;
Since optic reason shows me plain,
I dreaded spectres of the brain;
And legendary fears are gone,
Though in tenacious childhood sown.
Thus in opinions I commence
Freeholder in the proper sense,
And neither suit nor service do,
Nor homage to pretenders show,
Who boast themselves by spurious roll
Lords of the manor of the soul;
Preferring sense from chin that's bare,
To nonsense throned in whisker'd hair.

To thee, Creator uncreate,

O Entium Ens! divinely great !-
Hold, Muse, nor melting pinions try,
Nor near the blazing glory fly,
Nor straining break thy feeble bow,
Unfeather'd arrows far to throw ;
Through fields unknown nor madly stray,
Where no ideas mark the way.
With tender eyes, and colours faint,
And trembling hands, forbear to paint.
Who, features veil'd by light, can hit ?
Where can, what has no outline, fit?
My soul, the vain attempt forego,
Thyself, the fitter subject, know.
He wisely shuns the bold extreme,
Who soon lays by th' unequal theme,
Nor runs, with wisdom's sirens caught,

On quicksands swallowing shipwreck'd thought;
But conscious of his distance, gives

Mute praise, and humble negatives.
In one, no object of our sight,
Immutable, and infinite,

Who can't be cruel, or unjust,
Calm and resign'd, I fix my trust;
To him my past and present state
I owe, and must my future fate.
A stranger into life I'm come,
Dying may be our going home,
Transported here by angry Fate,
The convicts of a prior state.
Hence I no anxious thoughts bestow
On matters I can never know.

Through life's foul way, like vagrant, pass'd,

He'll grant a settlement at last;

And with sweet ease the wearied crown

By leave to lay his being down.

If doom'd to dance th' eternal round
Of life no sooner lost but found,

And dissolution soon to come,

Like spunge, wipes out life's present sum,
But can't our state of pow'r bereave

An endless series to receive;

Then, if hard dealt with here by fate,
We balance in another state,

And consciousness must go along,

And sign th' acquittance for the wrong.
He for his creatures must decree
More happiness than misery,
Or be supposed to create,

Curious to try, what 'tis to hate :
And do an act, which rage infers,
'Cause lameness halts, or blindness errs.

Thus, thus I steer my bark, and sail
On even keel with gentle gale;

At helm I make my reason sit,
My crew of passions all submit.
If dark and blust'ring prove some nights,
Philosophy puts forth her lights;
Experience holds the cautious glass,
To shun the breakers, as I pass,
And frequent throws the wary lead,
To see what dangers may be hid :
And once in seven years I'm seen
At Bath or Tunbridge, to careen.
Though pleased to see the dolphins play,
I mind my compass and my way.
With store sufficient for relief,
And wisely still prepared to reef,
Nor wanting the dispersive bowl
Of cloudy weather in the soul,

I make (may heaven propitious send
Such wind and weather to the end)
Neither becalm'd, nor overblown,
Life's voyage to the world unknown.

GEORGE LILLO was the son of a Dutch jeweller, who married an English woman, and settled in London. Our poet was born near Moorfields, was bred to his father's business, and followed it for many years. The story of his dying in distress was a fiction of Hammond, the poet; for he bequeathed a considerable property to his nephew, whom he made his heir. It has been said that this bequest was in consequence of his finding the young man disposed to lend him a sum of money at a time when he thought proper to feign pecuniary distress, in order that he might discover the sincerity of those calling themselves his friends. Thomas Davies, his biographer and editor, professes to have got this anecdote from a surviving partner of Lillo. It bears, however, an intrinsic air of improbability. It is not usual for sensible tradesmen to affect being on the verge of bankruptcy, and Lillo's character was that of an uncommonly sensible man. Fielding, his intimate friend, ascribes to him a manly simplicity of mind, that is extremely unlike such a stratagem.

Lillo is the tragic poet of middling and familiar life. Instead of heroes from romance and history, he gives the merchant and his apprentice; and the Macbeth of his "Fatal Curiosity" is a private gentleman, who has been reduced by his poverty to dispose of his copy of Seneca for a morsel of bread. The mind will be apt, after reading his works, to suggest to itself the question, how far the graver drama would gain or lose by a more general adoption of this plebeian principle. The cares, it may be said, that are most familiar to our existence, and the distresses of those nearest to ourselves in situation, ought to lay the strongest hold upon our sympathies, and the general mass of society ought to furnish a more express image of man than any detached or elevated portion of the species.

Lillo is certainly a master of potent effect in the exhibition of human suffering. His representation of actual or intended murder seems to assume a deeper terror from the familiar circumstances of life with which it is invested. Such indeed is said to have been the effect of a scene in his "Arden of Feversham," that the audience rose up with one accord and interrupted it. The anecdote, whether true or false, must recall to the mind of every one who has perused that piece, the harrowing sympathy which it is calculated to excite. But, notwithstanding the power of Lillo's works, we entirely miss in them that romantic attraction which invites to repeated

perusal of them. They give us life in a close and dreadful semblance of reality, but not arrayed in the magic illusion of poetry. His strength lies in conception of situations, not in beauty of dialogue, or in the eloquence of the passions. Yet the effect of his plain and homely subjects was so strikingly superior to that of the vapid and heroic productions of the day, as to induce some of his contemporary admirers to pronounce that he had reached the acme of dramatic excellence, and struck into the best and most genuine path of tragedy. George Barnwell, it was observed, drew more tears than the rants of Alexander. This might be true, but it did not bring the comparison of humble and heroic subjects to a fair test; for the tragedy of Alexander is bad not from its subject, but from the incapacity of the poet who composed it. It does not prove that heroes drawn from history or romance are not at least as susceptible of high and poetical effect as a wicked apprentice, or a distressed gentleman pawning his moveables. It is one question whether Lillo has given to his subjects from private life the degree of beauty of which they are susceptible. He is a master of terrific, but not of tender impressions. We feel a harshness and gloom in his genius even while we are compelled to admire its force and originality.

The peculiar choice of his subjects was happy and commendable as far as it regarded himself, for his talents never succeeded so well when he ventured out of them. But it is another question, whether the familiar cast of those subjects was fitted to constitute a more genuine, or only a subordinate, walk in tragedy. Undoubtedly the genuine delineation of the human heart will please us, from whatever station or circumstances of life it is derived. In the simple pathos of tragedy probably very little difference will be felt from the choice of characters being pitched above or below the line of mediocrity in station. But something more than pathos is required in tragedy; and the very pain that attends our sympathy requires agreeable and romantic associations of the fancy to be blended with its poignancy. Whatever attaches ideas of importance, publicity, and elevation to the object of pity, forms a brightening and alluring medium to the imagination. Athens herself, with all her simplicity and democracy, delighted on the stage

to

"let gorgeous Tragedy

"In sceptred pall come sweeping by."

Even situations far depressed beneath the familiar mediocrity of life are more picturesque and poetical than its ordinary level. It is certainly on the virtues of the middling rank of life that the strength and comforts of society chiefly depend, in the same manner as we look for the harvest not on cliffs and precipices, but on the easy slope and the uniform plain. But the

painter does not in general fix on level countries for the subjects of his noblest landscapes. There is an analogy, I conceive, to this in the moral painting of tragedy. Disparities of station give it boldness of outline. The commanding situations of life are its mountain scenery-the region where its storm and sunshine may be portrayed in their strongest contrast and colouring.

Persons-MARIA, CHARLOTTE, and YOUNG WILMOT.

Enter CHARLOTTE, thoughtful; and soon after MARIA from the other side.

Mar. MADAM, a stranger in a foreign habit Desires to see you.

Char. In a foreign habit

'Tis strange, and unexpected-But admit him. [Exit MARIA. Who can this stranger be? I know no foreigner,

Enter YOUNG WILMOT.

Nor any man like this.
Y. Wilm. Ten thousand joys!

[Going to embrace her. Char. You are rude, sir-Pray forbear, and let me know

What business brought you here, or leave the place. Y. Wilm. She knows me not, or will not seem to know me. [Aside.

Perfidious maid! Am I forgot or scorn'd? Char. Strange questions from a man I never knew!

Y. Wilm. With what aversion and contempt she views me!

My fears are true; some other has her heart :
-She's lost-My fatal absence has undone me.
[Aside.
O could thy Wilmot have forgot thee, Charlotte?
Char. Ha! Wilmot! say! what do your words
import ?

O gentle stranger! ease my swelling heart
That else will burst! Canst thou inform me aught?-
What dost thou know of Wilmot ?

Y. Wilm. This I know,

When all the winds of heaven seem'd to conspire
Against the stormy main, and dreadful peals
Of rattling thunder deafen'd every car,
And drown'd th' affrighten'd mariners' loud cries,
While livid lightning spread its sulph'rous flames
Through all the dark horizon, and disclosed
The raging seas incensed to his destruction;
When the good ship in which he was embark'd,
Unable longer to support the tempest,
Broke, and o'erwhelm'd by the impetuous surge,
Sunk to the oozy bottom of the deep,
And left him struggling with the warring waves;
In that dread moment, in the jaws of death,
When his strength fail'd and every hope forsook him,

And his last breath press'd t'wards his trembling lips, The neighbouring rocks, that echoed to his moan, Return'd no sound articulate, but Charlotte !

Char. The fatal tempest whose description strikes The hearer with astonishment is ceased; And Wilmot is at rest. The fiercer storm Of swelling passions that o'erwhelms the soul, And rages worse than the mad foaming seas In which he perish'd, ne'er shall vex him more. Y. Wilm. Thou seem'st to think he's dead: enjoy that thought;

Persuade yourself that what you wish is true,
And triumph in your falsehood-Yes, he's dead;
You were his fate. The cruel winds and waves,
That cast him pale and breathless on the shore,
Spared him for greater woes-To know his
Charlotte,

Forgetting all her vows to him and heaven,
Had cast him from her thoughts-Then, then he

died;

Detested falsehood now has done its worst.
And art thou dead?- -And wouldst thou die,
my Wilmot !

For one thou thought'st unjust?—Thou soul of truth!
What must be done?-which way shall I express
Unutterable woe? Or how convince
Thy dear departed spirit of the love,
Th' eternal love, and never-failing faith
Of thy much injured, lost, despairing Charlotte!
Y. Wilm. Be still, my flutt'ring heart; hope not
too soon:
[4 side.

Perhaps I dream, and this is all illusion.

Char. If, as some teach, the mind intuitive,
Free from the narrow bounds and slavish ties
Of sordid earth that circumscribe its power
While it remains below, roving at large,
Can trace us to our most conceal'd retreat,
See all we act, and read our very thoughts;
To thee, O Wilmot! kneeling I appeal,
If e'er I swerved in action, word or thought,
From the severest constancy and truth,
Or ever wish'd to taste a joy on earth