Heard ye the din of battle bray,1

Lance to lance, and horse to horse? Long years of havoc urge their destined course, And through the kindred squadrons mow their way. Ye Towers of Julius,2 London's lasting shame,

With many a foul and midnight murder fed,
Revere his consort's faith,3 his father's fame,
And spare the meek usurper's holy head!"
Above, below, the rose of snow,6

Twined with her blushing foe, we spread:
The bristled boar7 in infant gore

Wallows beneath the thorny shade.

Now, brothers, bending o'er the accursed loom, Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.

“Edward, lo! to sudden fate

(Weave we the woof. The thread is spun).
Half of thy hearts we consecrate.
(The web is wove. The work is done)."
Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn

Leave me unblessed, unpitied, here to mourn:
In yon bright tract, that fires the western skies,
They melt, they vanish from my eyes.

But oh! what solemn scenes, on Snowdon's height
Descending slow, their glittering skirts unroll?
Visions of glory, spare my aching sight;

Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul! No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail.

All hail, ye genuine kings!10 Britannia's issue hail!

Girt with many a baron bold,

Sublime their starry fronts they rear;

And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old,
In bearded majesty appear.

In the midst a form divine!

Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line;
Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face,
Attempered sweet to virgin-grace.

What strings symphonious tremble in the air,
What strains of vocal transport round her play!
Hear from the grave, great Taliessin,12 hear!
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.

confederate lords in their manifesto, by Thomas of Walsingham, and all the older writers) was starved to death. The story of his assassination by Sir Piers, of Exon, is of much later date.

1 Ruinous civil wars of York and Lancaster.

2 Henry VL, George, Duke of Clarence, Edward V., Richard, Duke of York, &c., believed to be murdered secretly in the Tower of London. The oldest part of that structure is vulgarly attributed to Julius Cæsar.

2 Margaret of Anjou, a woman of heroic spirit, who struggled hard to save her husband and her crown.

4 Henry V. 5 Henry VI., very near been canonised. The line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the

8 Eleanor of Castile died a few years after the conquest of Wales. The heroic proof she gave of her affection for her lord is well-known. The monuments of his regret and sorrow for the loss of her, are still to be seen at Northampton, Geddington, Waltham, and other places.

It was the common belief of the Welsh nation, that King Arthur was still alive in Fairy Land, and should return again to reign over Britain.

10 Both Merlin and Taliessin had prophesied, that the Welsh should regain their sovereignty over this island, which seemed to be accomplished in the house of Tudor.

11 Speed, relating an audience given by Queen Elizabeth to Paul Dzialinski, ambassador of Poland, says, And thus she, lion-like, rising, daunted the malipert orator no less with her stately port and majestical deporture, than with the tartnesse of her princelie checkes.'

12 Taliessin, chief of the bards, flourished in the sixth cen

Bright Rapture calls, and soaring as she sings,
Waves in the eye of Heaven her many-coloured wings.

The verse adorn again

Fierce War, and faithful Love,

And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction dressed.
In buskined measures move

Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain,

With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
A voice2 as of the cherub-choir,
Gales from blooming Eden bear;

And distant warblings3 lessen on my ear,
That, lost in long futurity, expire.

Fond, impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood,

And warms the nations with redoubled ray. Enough for me: with joy I see

The different doom our Fates assign. Be thine Despair, and sceptred Care; To triumph, and to die, are mine.'

He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height, Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.

Stoke Pogeis Church, and Tomb of Gray.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

tury. His works are still preserved, and his memory held in
high veneration among his countrymen.
1 Shakspeare.
2 Milton.

3 The succession of poets after Milton's time.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team a-field! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour:

The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,

If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,

Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre.

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem, of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.
The applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind; The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool sequestered vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet even these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.
For thee, who, mindful of the unhonoured dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate;
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
'Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
There at the foot of yonder nodding beech

That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by. Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove; Now drooping, woful, wan, like one forlorn,

Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. One morn I missed him on the 'customed hill, Along the heath and near his favourite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

The next, with dirges due in sad array

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne: Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.'

THE EPITAPH.

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth,

A Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown;
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send :
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,

He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose), The bosom of his Father and his God.

The Alliance between Government and Education; a Fragment.

As sickly plants betray a niggard earth,
Whose barren bosom starves her generous birth,
Nor genial warmth, nor genial juice retains
Their roots to feed, and fill their verdant veins :
And, as in climes where Winter holds his reign,
The soil, though fertile, will not teem in vain,
Forbids her germs to swell, her shades to rise,
Nor trusts her blossoms to the churlish skies:
To draw mankind in vain the vital airs,
Unformed, unfriended by those kindly cares,
That health and vigour to the soul impart,
Spread the young thought, and warm the opening heart.
So fond instruction on the growing powers
Of nature idly lavishes her stores,
If equal justice, with unclouded face,
Smile not indulgent on the rising race,

And scatter with a free, though frugal hand,
Light golden showers of plenty o'er the land;
But tyranny has fixed her empire there,
To check their tender hopes with chilling fear,
And blast the blooming promise of the year.

The spacious animated scene survey,
From where the rolling orb that gives the day,
His sable sons with nearer course surrounds,
To either pole, and life's remotest bounds.
How rude soe'er the exterior form we find,
Howe'er opinion tinge the varied mind,
Alike to all the kind impartial Heaven
The sparks of truth and happiness has given:
With sense to feel, with memory to retain,
They follow pleasure, and they fly from pain;
Their judgment mends the plan their fancy draws,
The event presages, and explores the cause;
The soft returns of gratitude they know,
By fraud elude, by force repel the foe;
While mutual wishes mutual woes endear,
The social smile and sympathetic tear.

Say, then, through ages by what fate confined, To different climes seem different souls assigned? Here measured laws and philosophic ease Fix and improve the polished arts of peace. There industry and gain their vigils keep, Command the winds, and tame the unwilling deep. Here force and hardy deeds of blood prevail; There languid pleasure sighs in every gale. Oft o'er the trembling nations from afar Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of war; And, where the deluge burst, with sweepy sway, Their arms, their kings, their gods were rolled

away.

As oft have issued, host impelling host,

The blue-eyed myriads from the Baltic coast,
The prostrate south to the destroyer yields
Her boasted titles, and her golden fields;
With grim delight the brood of winter view
A brighter day, and heavens of azure hue,
Scent the new fragrance of the breathing rose,
And quaff the pendent vintage as it grows.
Proud of the yoke, and pliant to the rod,
Why yet does Asia dread a monarch's nod,
While European freedom still withstands
The encroaching tide that drowns her lessening lands,
And sees far off, with an indignant groan,
Her native plains and empires once her own?
Can opener skies and suns of fiercer flame
O'erpower the fire that animates our frame;
As lamps, that shed at eve a cheerful ray,
Fade and expire beneath the eye of day?
Need we the influence of the northern star
To string our nerves and steel our hearts to war!
And where the face of nature laughs around,
Must sickening virtue fly the tainted ground?
Unmanly thought! what seasons can control,
What fancied zone can circumscribe the soul,
Who, conscious of the source from whence she springs,
By reason's light, on resolution's wings,
Spite of her frail companion, dauntless goes
O'er Lybia's deserts and through Zembla's snows?
She bids each slumbering energy awake,
Another touch, another temper take,
Suspends the inferior laws that rule our clay;
The stubborn elements confess her sway;
Their little wants, their low desires, refine,
And raise the mortal to a height divine.

Not but the human fabric from the birth
Imbibes a flavour of its parent earth.
As various tracts enforce a various toil,
The manners speak the idiom of their soil.
An iron race the mountain-cliffs maintain,
Foes to the gentle genius of the plain;
For where unwearied sinews must be found,
With side-long plough to quell the flinty ground,

To turn the torrent's swift-descending flood,
To brave the savage rushing from the wood,
What wonder, if to patient valour trained,
They guard with spirit what by strength they gained?
And while their rocky ramparts round they see,
The rough abode of want and liberty,

(As lawless force from confidence will grow),
Insult the plenty of the vales below?
What wonder, in the sultry climes that spread,
Where Nile, redundant o'er his summer bed,
From his broad bosom life and verdure flings,
And broods o'er Egypt with his watery wings,
If with adventurous oar and ready sail,
The dusky people drive before the gale;
Or on frail floats to neighbouring cities ride,
That rise and glitter o'er the ambient tide.

·

WILLIAM MASON.

WILLIAM MASON, the friend and literary executor of Gray, long survived the connection which did him so much honour, but he appeared early as a poet. He was the son of the Rev. Mr Mason, vicar of St. Trinity, Yorkshire, where he was born in 1725. At Pembroke college, Cambridge, he became acquainted with Gray, who assisted him in obtaining his degree of M.A. His first literary production was an attack on the Jacobitism of Oxford, to which Thomas Warton replied in his 'Triumph of Isis.' In 1753 appeared his tragedy of Elfrida, 'written,' says Southey, on an artificial model, and in a gorgeous diction, because he thought Shakspeare had precluded all hope of excellence in any other form of drama.' The model of Mason was the Greek drama, and he introduced into his play the classic accompaniment of the chorus. A second drama, Caractacus, is of a higher cast than Elfrida:' more noble and spirited in language, and of more sustained dignity in scenes, situations, and character. Mason also wrote a series of odes on Independence, Memory, Melancholy, and The Fall of Tyranny, in which his gorgeousness of diction swells into extravagance and bombast. His other poetical works are his English Garden, a long descriptive poem in blank verse, extended over four books, and an ode on the Commemoration of the British Revolution, in which he asserts those Whig principles which he steadfastly maintained during the trying period of the American war. As in his dramas Mason had made an innovation on the established taste of the times, he ventured, with equal success, to depart from the practice of English authors, in writing the life of his friend Gray. Instead of presenting a continuous narrative, in which the biographer alone is visible, he incorporated the journals and letters of the poet in chronological order, thus making the subject of the memoir in some degree his own biographer, and enabling the reader to judge more fully and correctly of his situation, thoughts, and feelings. The plan was afterwards adopted by Boswell in his Life of Johnson, and has been sanctioned by subsequent usage, in all cases where the subject is of importance enough to demand copious information and minute personal details. The circumstances of Mason's life are soon related. After his career at college, he entered into orders, and was appointed one of the royal chaplains. He held the living of Ashton, and was precentor of York cathedral. When politics ran high, he took an active part on the side of the Whigs, but was respected by all parties. He died in 1797.

Mason's poetry cannot be said to be popular, even with poetical readers. His greatest want is simplicity, yet at times his rich diction has a fine effect. In his English Garden,' though verbose and lan

[From Caractacus.]

Mona on Snowdon calls:
Hear, thou king of mountains, hear;

Hark, she speaks from all her strings:
Hark, her loudest echo rings;
King of mountains, bend thine ear:
Send thy spirits, send them soon,
Now, when midnight and the moon
Meet upon thy front of snow;
See, their gold and ebon rod,
Where the sober sisters nod,

And greet in whispers sage and slow.
Snowdon, mark! 'tis magic's hour,
Now the muttered spell hath power;
Power to rend thy ribs of rock,

And burst thy base with thunder's shock:

But to thee no ruder spell

Shall Mona use, than those that dwell

In music's secret cells, and lie

Steeped in the stream of harmony.

Snowdon has heard the strain:

Hark, amid the wondering grove
Other harpings answer clear,
Other voices meet our ear,
Pinions flutter, shadows move,
Busy murmurs hum around,

Rustling vestments brush the ground;

Round and round, and round they go,

Through the twilight, through the shade,
Mount the oak's majestic head,

And gild the tufted misletoe.

Cease, ye glittering race of light,

Close your wings, and check your flight;
Here, arranged in order due,

Spread your robes of saffron hue;
For lo! with more than mortal fire,
Mighty Mador smites the lyre:
Hark, he sweeps the master-strings;
Listen all-

Epitaph on Mrs Mason, in the Cathedral of Bristol. Take, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear:

Take that best gift which heaven so lately gave: To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care

Her faded form; she bowed to taste the wave, And died! Does youth, does beauty, read the line? Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm? Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine; Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm. Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee;

Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move; And if so fair, from vanity as free;

As firm in friendship, and as fond in love. Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, ('Twas even to thee) yet the dread path once trod, Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,

And bids 'the pure in heart behold their God.'

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH, whose writings range over every department of miscellaneous literature, challenges attention as a poet chiefly for the unaffected ease, grace, and tenderness of his descriptions of rural and domestic life, and for a certain vein of pensive philosophic reflection. His countryman Burke said of himself, that he had taken his ideas of liberty not too high, that they might last him through life. Goldsmith seems to have pitched his poetry in a subdued under tone, that he might luxuriate at will among those images of quiet beauty, comfort, benevolence, and simple pathos, that were most congenial to his own character, his hopes, or his experience. This popular poet was born at Pallas, a small village in the parish of Forney, county of Longford, Ireland, on the 10th of November 1728. He was the sixth of a family of nine children, and his father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, was a poor curate, who eked out the scanty funds which he derived from his profession, by renting and cultivating some land. The poet's father afterwards succeeded to the rectory of Kilkenny West, and removed to the house and farm

Ruins of the house at Lissoy, where Goldsmith spent
his youth.

of Lissoy, in his former parish. Here Goldsmith's youth was spent, and here he found the materials for his Deserted Village. After a good country education, Oliver was admitted a sizer of Trinity college, Dublin, June 11, 1745. The expense of his education was chiefly defrayed by his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Contarini, an excellent man, son to an Italian of the Contarini family at Venice, and a clergyman of the established church. At college, the poet was thoughtless and irregular, and always in want. His tutor was a man of fierce and brutal passions, and having struck him on one occasion before a party of friends, the poet left college, and wandered about the country for some time in the utmost poverty. His brother Henry clothed and carried him back to college, and on the 27th of February 1749, he was admitted to the degree of B.A. Goldsmith now gladly left the university, and returned to Lissoy.