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than perhaps any man besides, and are only sad to have less in comparison with one another. Homer was the greater genius; Virgil, the better artist. In one we most admire the man; in the other, the work. Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding impetuosity; Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty: Homer scatters with a generous profusion; Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence: Homer, like the Nile, pours out his riches with a boundless overflow; Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a gentle and constant stream. When we behold their battles, methinks the two poets resemble the heroes they celebrate: Homer, boundless and irresistible as Achilles, bears all before him, and shines more and more as the tumult increases; Virgil, calmly daring like Æneas, appears undisturbed in the midst of the action; disposes all about him, and conquers with tranquillity. And when we look upon their machines, Homer seems like his own Jupiter in his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the heavens; Virgil, like the same power in his benevolence, counselling with the gods, laying plans for empires, and regularly ordering his whole creation.

Preface to the Iliad.

ROBERT BLAIR. 1699-1746.

ROBERT BLAIR, the author of "The Grave," was born in 1699. But few particulars are known respecting his life. After receiving a liberal education, he travelled on the continent for further improvement, and in 1731 was ordained as a minister of the parish of Athelstaneford, in East Lothian, where he spent the remainder of his life, which was terminated by a fever, in 1746, in the forty-seventh year of his age.

"The eighteenth century has produced few specimens of blank verse of so powerful and simple a character as that of the 'Grave.' It is a popular poem, not merely because it is religious, but because its language and imagery are free, natural, and picturesque. In the eye of fastidious criticism, Blair may be a homely and even a gloomy poet; but there is a masculine and pronounced character even in his gloom and homeliness, that keeps it most distinctly apart from either dryness or vulgarity. His style pleases us like the powerful expression of a countenance without regular beauty.”1

THE GRAVE.

Whilst some affect the sun, and some the shade,
Some flee the city, some the hermitage;

Their aims as various as the roads they take
In journeying through life;-the task be mine
To paint the gloomy horrors of the tomb;
Th' appointed place of rendezvous, where all
These travellers meet.-Thy succors I implore,

1 Campbell's Specimens, vol. v. p 204.

Eterua, King! whose potent arm sustains

The keys of bell and death.-The Grave-dread thing!
Men shiver when thou'rt named. Nature, appall'd,
Shakes off her wonted firmness.-Ah! how dark
Thy long-extended realms, and rueful wastes!
Where naught but silence reigns, and night, dark night,
Dark as was chaos, ere the infant sun

Was roll'd together, or had tried his beams
Athwart the gloom profound.-

DEATH-DIVIDED FRIENDSHIPS.

Invidious Grave! how dost thou rend in sunder
Whom love has knit, and sympathy made one!
A tie more stubborn far than nature's band.
Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!
Sweetener of life! and solder of society!

I owe thee much. Thou hast deserved from me
Far, far beyond what I can ever pay.

Oft have I proved the labors of thy love,
And the warm efforts of thy gentle heart,

Anxious to please. Oh! when my friend and I
In some thick wood have wander'd heedless on
Hid from the vulgar eye, and sat us down
Upon the sloping cowslip-cover'd bank,
Where the pure limpid stream has slid along
In grateful errors through the underwood,

Sweet murmuring, methought the shrill-tongued thrush
Mended his song of love; the sooty blackbird

Mellow'd his pipe, and soften'd every note;
The eglantine smell'd sweeter, and the rose

Assumed a dye more deep; whilst every flower

Vied with its fellow-plant in luxury

Of dress! Oh! then the longest summer's day

Seem'd too, too much in haste: still, the full heart
Had not imparted half: 'twas happiness

Too exquisite to last. Of joys departed

Not to return, how painful the remembrance!

DEATH, THE GOOD MAN'S PATH TO ETERNAL JOY.

Thrice welcome Death!

That, after many a painful bleeding step,
Conducts us to our home, and lands us safe

On the long-wish'd-for shore. Prodigious change!
Our bane turn'd to a blessing! Death, disarm'd,
Loses his fellness quite; all thanks to Him
Who scourged the venom out. Sure the last end
Of the good man is peace! How calm his exit!
Night-dews fall not more gently to the ground,
Nor weary worn-out winds expire so soft.
Behold him! in the evening tide of life,
A life well spent, whose early care it was
His riper years should not upbraid his green:
By imperceived degrees he wears away;
Yet, like the sun, seems larger at his setting!

High in his faith and hopes, look how he reaches
After the prize in view! and, like a bird
That's hamper'd, struggles hard to get away!
Whilst the glad gates of sight are wide expanded
To let new glories in, the first fair fruits
Of the fast-coming harvest. Then, oh, then,
Each earth-born joy grows vile, or disappears,
Shrunk to a thing of naught! Oh, how he longs
To have his passport sign'd, and be dismiss'd!
'Tis done and now he's happy! The glad soul
Has not a wish uncrown'd. E'en the lag flesh
Rests, too, in hope of meeting once again
Its better half, never to sunder more.

Nor shall it hope in vain: the time draws on
When not a single spot of burial earth,
Whether on land, or in the spacious sea,
But must give back its long-committed dust
Inviolate; and faithfully shall these

Make up the full account; not the least atom
Embezzled or mislaid of the whole tale.

Each soul shall have a body ready furnish'd;
And each shall have his own. Hence, ye profane
Ask not how this can be? Sure the same Power
That rear'd the piece at first, and took it down,
Can reassemble the loose scatter'd parts,
And put them as they were. Almighty God
Hath done much more: nor is his arm impair'd
Through length of days; and what he can, he will;
His faithfulness stands bound to see it done.

When the dread trumpet sounds, the slumbering dust,
Not unattentive to the call, shall wake;

And every joint possess its proper place,
With a new elegance of form unknown

To its first state. Nor shall the conscious soul
Mistake its partner, but amidst the crowd,
Singling its other half, into its arms

Shall rush, with all th' impatience of a man

That's new come home, and, having long been absent
With haste runs over every different room,

In pain to see the whole. Thrice-happy meeting!
Nor time, nor death, shall ever part them more.

'Tis but a night, a long and moonless night;
We make the grave our bed, and then are gone!
Thus, at the shut of even, the weary bird
Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake
Cowers down, and dozes till the dawn of day,
Then claps his well-fledged wings, and bears away

JAMES THOMSON. 1700-1748.

JAMES THOMSON, the author of "The Seasons," was the son of a Scotch clergyman, and was born in the year 1700. After completing his academic education at the University of Edinburgh, he entered upon the study of divi nity; but a paraphrase of one of the Psalms having been given, by the professor of divinity, to the class, Thomson's exercise was in so poetical and figurative a style as to astonish all who heard it. This incident made him resolve to quit divinity for poetry, and, after some time, he went to London, poor and friendless, to try his fortune, with the manuscript of "Winter" in his pocket. It was with difficulty he found a purchaser for it, and the price given was trifling. It was published in 1726, and after a period of neglect,' was admired and applauded, and a number of editions speedily followed. His "Summer" appeared in 1727, "Spring" in 1728, and “Autumn" in 1730. After the publication of the Seasons, he travelled on the continent with the son of the Lord Chancellor Talbot, and on his return employed himself in the composition of his various tragedies, and his poem on " Liberty." These are by no means equal to his other performances, and are now but little read. In May, 1748, he finished his "Castle of Indolence," upon which he had been laboring for years. This is the noblest effort of his genius. "To it," says Campbell, he brought not only the full nature, but the perfect art of a poet. The materials of that exquisite poem are derived originally from Tasso; but he was more immediately indebted for them to the Faerie Queene." Indeed, of all the imitations of Spenser, it is the most spirited and beautiful, both for its moral, poetical, and descriptive power. He did not long survive its publication. A violent cold, through inattention, terminated in a fever, and carried him off on the 27th of August, 1748.

In nature and originality, Thomson is superior to all the descriptive poets except Cowper, and few poems in the English language have been more popular than the "Seasons." "It is almost stale to remark," observes Campbell, "the beauties of a poem so universally felt; the truth and genial interest with which he carries us through the life of the year; the harmony of succession which he gives to the casual phenomena of nature; his pleasing transition from native to foreign scenery; and the soul of exalted and unfeigned benevolence which accompanies his prospects of the creation. It is but equal justice to say that, amidst the feeling and fancy of the Seasons,' we meet with interruptions of declamation, heavy narrative, and unhappy digression." But though Thomson's merits as a descriptive poet are of the first order; though he looks with the eye which nature bestows only on a poet, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast, and attends to the minute," yet his greatest charm, and that which makes him so popular with all classes, is, that he looks also with a heart that feels for all mankind. As has been well said, "his sympathies are universal." His touching allusions to the con

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1 "When Thomson published his "Winter," it lay a long time neglected, till Mr. Spense made honorable mention of it in his "Odyssey," which, becoming a popular book, made the poem universally known."-Warton.

2 "Thomson was blessed with a strong and copious fancy: he hath enriched poetry with a variety of new and original images, which he painted from nature itself, and from his own actual observa tions: his descriptions have therefore a distinctness and truth which are utterly wanting to those of poets who have only copied from each other, and have never looked abroad on the objects them selves."-Warton's Pope, 42.

ditions of the poor and suffering; to the hapless state of bird and beast in winter; the description of the peasant perishing in the snow; the Siberian exile, or the Arab pilgrims, all are marked with that humanity and true feel ing which show that the poet's virtues "formed the magic of his song." The genuine impulses under which he wrote, he has expressed in one noble stanza in the "Castle of Indolence:"

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ;
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,

Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve:
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave;
Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave,

THE LOVES OF THE BIRDS.

When first the soul of love is sent abroad,
Warm through the vital air, and on the heart
Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin
In gallant thought to plume the painted wing,
And try again the long-forgotten strain,
At first faint-warbled. But no sooner grows
The soft infusion prevalent and wide,
Than, all alive, at once their joy o'erflows
In music unconfined. Up-springs the lark,
Shrill-voiced and loud, the messenger of morn;
Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings
Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts
Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse
Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush
Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads
Of the coy quiristers that lodge within,
Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush

And wood-lark, o'er the kind-contending throng
Superior heard, run through the sweetest length
Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns
To let them joy, and purposes, in thought
Elate, to make her night excel their day.
The black-bird whistles from the thorny brake;
The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove:
Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze
Four'd out profusely, silent. Join'd to these
Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade
Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix
Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw,
And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone,
Aid the full concert: while the stock-dove breathes
A melancholy murmur through the whole.
'Tis love creates their melody, and all
This waste of music is the voice of love;
That e'en to birds, and beasts, the tender arts

Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind

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