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Where nature works in secret; view the beds
Of mineral treasure, and the eternal vault
That bounds the hoary-ocean; trace the forms
Of atoms moving with incessant change
Their elemental round: behold the seeds
Of being, and the energy of life
Kindling the mass with ever-active flame:
Then to the secrets of the working mind
Attentive turn; from dim oblivion call
Her fleet ideal band; and bid them, go!
Break through time's barrier, and o'ertake the hour
That saw the heavens created: then declare

If aught were found in those external scenes
To move thy wonder now. For what are all
The forms which brute unconscious matter wears,
Greatness of bulk, or symmetry of parts?
Not reaching to the heart, soon feeble grows
The superficial impulse; dull their charms,
And satiate soon, and pall the languid eye.
Not so the moral species, nor the powers
Of genius and design: the ambitious mind
There sees herself: by these congenial forms
Touched and awakened, with intenser act
She bends each nerve, and meditates well-pleased,
Her features in the mirror. For of all
The inhabitants of earth, to man alone
Creative wisdom gave to lift his eye

To truth's eternal measures; thence to frame
The sacred laws of action and of will,
Discerning justice from unequal deeds
And temperance from folly. But beyond
This energy of truth, whose dictates bind
Assenting reason, the benignant Sire,
To deck the honoured paths of just and good,
Has added bright imagination's rays:
Where virtue, rising from the awful depth
Of truth's mysterious bosom, doth forsake
The unadorned condition of her birth;
And, dressed by fancy in ten thousand, hues,
Assumes a various feature to attract
With charms responsive to each gazer's eye,
The hearts of men. Amid his rural walk,
The ingenious youth, whom solitude inspires
With purest wishes, from the pensive shade
Beholds her moving, like a virgin-muse
That wakes her lyre to some indulgent theme
Of harmony and wonder: while among
The herd of servile minds her strenuous form
Indignant flashes on the patriot's eye,
And through the rolls of memory appeals
To ancient honour, or, in act serene
Yet watchful, raises the majestic sword
Of public power. from dark ambition's reach,
To guard the sacred volume of the laws.

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THOMAS BLACKLOCK, a blind descriptive poet, was the son of a Cumberland bricklayer, and was born at Annan, Dumfrieshire in 1721. When about six months old, he was totally deprived of sight by the small-pox; but his worthy father, assisted by his neighbors, amused his solitary boyhood by reading to him out of the works of Spenser, Milton, Pope, and Addison; and before he reached his twentieth year he had become entirely familiar with the writings of these great poets, and also with those of Thomson and Allen Ramsay. Blacklock's father was accidentally killed when the poet had scarcely reached his nineteenth year; but some of his early poems having been seen by Dr. Stevenson of Edinburgh, that benevolent gentleman took their blind author to the Scottish metropolis, where he was soon after enrolled in the university as a student of divinity. In 1759 he was licensed as a preacher, previous to which he had published a volume of his poems, three separate editions of which were called for in rapid succession. In 1762, he married the daughter of Dr. Johnston of Dumfries, and the same year, through the patronage of the Earl of Selkirk, was appointed minister of Kirkcudbright. In 1766, he was made a doctor of divinity, soon after which, in consequence of some dissatisfaction in his parish, he removed to Edinburgh, and opened a boarding-house.

To his literary pursuits Dr. Blacklock added a taste for music, and played well on both the flute and the flageolet. His residence in the city was the usual meeting place of its numerous literary men, and his family circle was one of peace and happiness. In the latter years of his life he suffered much from depression of spirits, and supposed that his imaginative powers were failing him. To this supposed decay of his faculties the blind bard thus pathetically alludes in a poem written a short time before his death :

his

Excursive on the gentle gales of spring,

He roved, whilst favour imped his timid wing.
Exhausted genius now no more inspires,

But mourns abortive hopes and faded fires;

The short-lived wreath, which once his temples graced,
Fades at the sickly breath of squeamish taste;

Whilst darker days his fainting flames immure

In cheerless gloom and winter premature.

Blacklock died on the seventh of July, 1791, in the seventy-first year of

age.

Though a poet by nature, and enthusiastically fond of the poetic art, Dr. Blacklock did not confine himself to that department of writing. He was the author of several sermons, and of some theological treatises; and he also wrote an elegant and ingenious article on Blindness, for the Encyclopædia Britannica, and two dissertations entitled Paraclesis; or Consolations Deduced from Natural and Revealed Religion. His poetry, though not remarkable for original imagery, deep sentiment, reflection, or imagination, still exhibits great fluency and correctness of versification, and entire familiarity with the visible objects of nature, such as trees, streams, rocks, the

sky, and even with the different colors of flowers and plants. In one to whom all external phenomena had ever been a 'universal blank,' this was certainly very remarkable, and shows clearly that his poetical feeling must have been inherited from nature. Of the two poems which follow, the latter is a sweet and elegantly expressed compliment to his wife :

TERRORS OF A GUILTY CONSCIENCE.

Cursed with unnumbered groundless fears,
How pale yon shivering wretch appears!
For him the daylight shines in vain,
For him the fields no joys contain;
Nature's whole charms to him are lost,
No more the woods their music boast;
No more the meads their vernal bloom,
No more the gales their rich perfume:
Impending mists deform the sky,
And beauty withers in his eye.
In hopes his terrors to elude,
By day he mingles with the crowd,
Yet finds his soul to fears a prey,
In busy crowds and open day.
If night his lonely walks surprise,
What horrid visions round him rise!
The blasted oak which meets his way,
Shown by the meteor's sudden ray,
The midnight murderer's lone retreat
Felt heaven's avengeful bolt of late;
The clashing chain, the groan profound,
Loud from yon ruined tower resound;
And now the sport he seems to tread,
Where some self-slaughtered curse was laid;
He feels fixed earth beneath him bend,
Deep murmurs from her caves ascend;

Till all his soul, by fancy swayed,

Sees livid phantoms crowd the shade.

ODE TO AURORA ON MELISSA'S BIRTHDAY.

Of time and nature eldest born,

Emerge, thou rosy-fingered morn;

Emerge, in purest dress arrayed,

And chase from heaven night's envious shade,

That I once more may pleased survey,

And hail Melissa's natal day.

Of time and nature eldest born,
Emerge, thou rosy-fingered morn;
In order at the eastern gate
The hours to draw thy chariot wait;
Whilst Zephyr on his balmy wings,
Mild nature's fragrant tribute brings,
With odours sweet to strew thy way,
And grace the bland revolving day.

But as thou lead'st the radiant sphere,
That gilds its birth and marks the year,
And as his stronger glories rise,
Diffused around the expanded skies,
Till clothed with beams serenely bright,

All heaven's vast concave flames with light;

So when through life's protracted day,
Melissa still pursues her way,

Her virtues with thy splendour vie,
Increasing to the mental eye;

Though less conspicuous, not less dear,
Long may they Bion's prospect cheer;

So shall his heart no more repine,

Blessed with her rays, though robbed of thine.

FRANCIS FAWKES was born in Yorkshire, in 1721, and educated at Jesus College, Cambridge. Having taken orders, he became curate of Bramham and Croyden, and died in 1777, in the vicarage of Hayes, in Kent. Fawkes enjoyed the friendship of Johnson and Warton; but though classic and refined in his taste, and, as already observed, the elegant translator of many of the Greek poets, he had, unfortunately, like Oldys, too great fondness for a cup of English ale. Though not bearing the stamp of superior genius, many of his original pieces are pleasing and even elegant. The following song will always be a favorite :

THE BROWN JUG.

Dear Tom, this brown jug that now foams with mild ale,
(In which I will drink to sweet Nan of the vale)

Was once Toby Fillpot, a thirsty old soul,
As e'er drank a bottle, or fathomed a bowl;
In bousing about 'twas his praise to excel,
And among jolly topers he bore off the bell.

It chanced as in dog-days he sat at his ease
In his flower-woven arbour, as gay as you please,
With a friend and a pipe puffing sorrows away,
And with honest old stingo was soaking his clay,
His breath-doors of life on a sudden were shut,
And he died full as big as a Dorchester butt.
His body when long in the ground it had lain,
And time into clay had resolved it again,

A potter found out in its covert so snug,

And with part of fat Toby he formed this brown jug;
Now sacred to friendship, and mirth, and mild ale,
So here's to my lovely sweet Nan of the vale!

JAMES GRAINGER was born at Dunse, in the south of Scotland, in 1721. He was educated at the university of Edinburgh, where he took the degree of doctor of medicine, and attended Lord Stair as surgeon of the army in the German campaign, of 1748. He afterwards settled in London as a physi

cian; but not being successful in his practice, he went, in 1759, to the island of St. Christophers, in the West Indies, commenced practising his profession, and soon after married a lady of fortune. He died of a contagious fever, in 1766.

Dr. Grainger published in 1755, his poem of Solitude, which contains a noble opening, and many other very fine passages. He also, before he left London, translated Tibullus, and was, for some time, a critic in the Monthly Review. During his residence at St. Christophers he wrote his poem of the Sugar-Cane, which Shenstone thought capable of being rendered a good poem, but which deserves little farther praise. For his poetical reputation he is indebted almost exclusively to the following ode:—

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,
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, puffed 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,
Restraint's stiff neck, Grimace's leer,
Squint-eyed Censure's artful sneer,
Ambitious buskins, steeped 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,
Wrapt earth's gazing Reverie,
Blushing artless Modesty,

Health that snuff's the morning air,
Full-eyed Truth, with bosom bare,
Inspiration, Nature's child,

Seek the solitary wild.

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