JAMES BEATTIE. 1735-1803.

Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb

The steep where Fame's proud temple shines The Minstrel. Book i. St. 1.

afar?

Old age comes on apace to ravage all the clime.
Ibid. Book i. St. 25.

Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down;
Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,
With here and there a violet bestrewn,

Fast by a brook or fountain's murmuring wave;
And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my
grave!
Ibid. Book ii. St. 17.

At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And naught but the nightingale's song in the

grove.

The Hermit.

He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man.

Ibid.

But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn? O, when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?

Ibid.

By the glare of false science betray'd,

That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind.

Ibid.

And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.

Ibid.

WILLIAM COWPER.

1731-1800.

United yet divided, twain at once.

So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne.1 The Task. Book i. The Sofa. Line 77.

Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,

Exhilarate the spirit, and restore

The tone of languid Nature.

Ibid. Line 181.

The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change,

And pleased with novelty, might be indulged. Ibid. Line 506.

God made the country, and man made the town.
Ibid. Line 749.

O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,3
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,

Might never reach me more.

Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 1.

1 Two Kings of Brentford, from Buckingham's play of The Rehearsal.

2 God the first garden made, and the first city Cain. Cowley, The Garden. Essay v.

God Almighty first planted a garden. — Bacon, Essays. Of Gardens.

Divina natura dedit agros, ars humana ædificavit urbes. Varro, Res Rom. 3, I.

3 Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men. — Jeremiah ix. 2.

Mountains interpos'd

Make enemies of nations who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 17.
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
Ibid. Line 29.

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country and their shackles fall.1

Ibid. Line 40.

England, with all thy faults I love thee still,

My country! 2

Ibid. Line 206.

Presume to lay their hand upon the ark

Of her magnificent and awful cause.

To fill the ambition of a private man,

That Chatham's language was his mother-tongue.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains

Which only poets know.3

Ibid. Line 235.

Ibid. Line 285.

1 Servi peregrini, ut primum Galliæ fines penetraverint

eodem momento liberi sunt.

Bodinus, Liber i. c. 5.

2 Be England what she will,

With all her faults she is my country still.

Churchill, The Farewell.

3 There is a pleasure sure

In being mad which none but madmen know.
Dryden, Spanish Friar. Act ii. Sc. I.

Transforms old print

To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes
Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.

The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 363.

Reading what they never wrote,

Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.

Her dear five hundred friends. Ibid. Line 642.

Domestic Happiness, thou only bliss

Of Paradise that has surviv'd the fall!

Book iii. The Garden. Line 41.

Great contest follows, and much learned dust.

Ibid. Line 161.

From reveries so airy, from the toil

Of dropping buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up.

Ibid. Line 188.

How various his employments, whom the world Calls idle; and who justly in return

Esteems that busy world an idler too!

Ibid. Line 352.

Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.

Line 566.

I burn to set the imprison'd wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,1
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

The Task. Book iv.

Winter Evening. Line 34

Which not even critics criticise.

Ibid. Line 51.

And Katerfelto, with his hair on end

At his own wonders, wondering for his bread.
'Tis pleasant, through the loop-holes of retreat,
To peep at such a world, to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.

Ibid. Line 86.

While fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.

Ibid. Line 118.

O Winter, ruler of the inverted year.

Ibid. Line 120.

With spots quadrangular of diamond form, Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife, And spades, the emblems of untimely graves. Ibid. Line 217.

1 [Tar-water] is of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution, as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate. - Bishop Berkeley, Siris, par. 217.