JAMES HURDIS. Of this amiable author, the friend and earliest follower of Cowper, a memoir was prefixed by his sister to the edition of his poems published at Oxford, in 1808. He was born at Bishopstone in Sussex, 1763; and by the death of his father was left, with six brothers and sisters, to the care of his mother. To this circumstance much of the tenderness of his character has been attributed. The situation of his surviving parent was full of difficulty, and the young poet laboured diligently to lighten her burden. He was educated at the Grammar School of Chichester, where his mechanical talents were displayed in the construction of an organ. In 1780 he went to Oxford, a commoner of St. Mary Hall, and in two years was chosen a Demy of Magdalen College, where he obtained the approbation and esteem of the President, Dr. Horne, and of his successor, the late learned and venerable Dr. Routh. Having taken his degree, in the May of 1785, he retired to the curacy of Burwash, in his native county, where he remained six years, having invited three of his sisters to reside with him. In the enjoyment of rural and domestic pleasures, he composed the most popular of his poems, the Village Curate; and in 1791, was presented to the living of Bishopstone, and about the same time wrote his tragedy of Sir Thomas More. In the following year he was deprived of his sister Catherine, the Isabel of his poetry, whose virtues he has affectionately recorded. While suffering under her loss, he was invited to Eartham to meet Cowper, who had expressed a desire for the interview. His spirits were scarcely equal to the visit. "You would admire him much," Cowper wrote to Lady Hesketh; "he is gentle in his manner, and delicate in his person, resembling our poor friend Unwin, both in face and figure, more than any one I have seen, but he has not—at least he has not at present-his vivacity." In 1793, he was elected to the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford; and in 1797, he printed at his own Press at Bishopstone, "Lectures showing the several sources of that Pleasure which the human mind receives from Poetry." They consist of passages from the best-known of the English writers, selected with taste, and connected by a few critical and illustrative observations. The Lectures embrace the Lewesdon Hill of Crowe, and the Sonnets of Mr. Bowles, who at the close of the eighteenth century, first delighted the ear of the scholar with those notes to which time has imparted a still sweeter music. The remaining years of Hurdis present no topic of general interest. He continued to amuse his leisure hours with the pleasures of verse, but his constitution had always been weak, and he expired December 13th, 1808, leaving a widow and three children. He was buried, by his own request, at Bishopstone. The Village Curate was suggested by the Task, and in the opening lines the writer professes his admiration of the "applauded Hayley," and of the But Bur had sung the pleasures and scenes of Weston. Tell me, ye fair, Alcanor tell me, what Of unabated labour? to observe How soon the golden field stands thick with sheaves? In frequent lines before the hungry scythe? The clattering team now comes, and the swarth hind VOL. II. Y With rustling steps the swain proceeds, and still Village Curate. The silent rook to the high wood make way Or the swallow that "skims the glassy pool," Or the grazing ox, His dewy supper from the savory herb Or the Sea, Raking with harsh recoil the pebbly steep. Hurdis, like Cowper, loved the "ingenious Cowley," and his picture of "the starry daisy, the courtier of the sun," recalls the amiable and unfortunate friend of Crashaw. Southey has recommended the incorporation of Hurdis among the British Poets; but it may be doubted whether his more appropriate situation would not be found in a collection of specimens. He is a writer to be admired only in fragments*. * There is something pleasing in the description of a woodland scene, in the Village Curate : The sober twilight of this winding way WILLIAM HAYWARD ROBERTS. THE literary history of this writer may be comprised in a few lines:-he was born in 1745, educated at Eton, and elected to King's College. In 1771, he published a Poetical Essay on the Existence of God, which was well spoken of at its appearance; and, in 1775, he printed a Collection of Poems, and the work by which alone he is now remembered,—Judah Restored. In 1781, upon the death of Dr. Barnard, to whom he had inscribed his Essay, he was appointed Provost of Eton College. He was also one of the King's Chaplains, and Rector of Farnham-Royal, Bucks. He died in 1791; and among the manuscripts discovered after his death, were some Corrections of various passages in our version of the Old Testament, which were edited by his son in 1794. When Hayley was at Eton, his poetical aspirations were encouraged by Roberts, at that time an usher of the school. Southey numbers him "with the same respectable class as the author of Leonidas and the Athenaid," and mentions Judah Restored as one of the first books he possessed in his boyhood. "I read it often then," he adds, "and can still recur to it with satisfaction: and perhaps I owe something to the plain dignity of its style, which is suited to the subject, and everywhere bears the stamp of good sense and erudition." The subject of the poem is sufficiently explained by the title. The style is modelled after Milton, whose pauses are often imitated with considerable success; but the author never emits |