To save his sire and sister: think'st thou, maid, EPITAPH ON MRS. MASON, IN THE CATHEDRAL OF BRISTOL. TAKE, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear: Take that best gift which Heav'n so lately gave: To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care Her faded form; she bow'd 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: charm. Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee; As firm in friendship, and as fond in love. ('Twas ev'n to thee) yet the dread path once trod, Heav'n lifts its everlasting portals high, And bids "the pure in heart behold their God." AN HEROIC EPISTLE' TO SIR WILLIAM CHAMBERS, KNIGHT, COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF HIS MAJESTY'S WORKS, AND AUTHOR OF A LATE DISSERTATION ON ORIENTAL GARDENING.-ENRICHED WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES, CHIEFLY EXTRACTED FROM THAT ELABORATE PERFORMANCE. KNIGHT of the polar star! by fortune plac'd This poem was first published in May 1773. * Cynosure, an affected phrase. "Cynosura is the constellation of Ursa Minor, or the Lesser Bear, the next star to the pole." Dr. Newton, on the word in Milton. 3" Many trees, shrubs and flowers," sayeth Li-Tsong, a Chinese author of great antiquity, "thrive best in low, moist situations; many on hills and mountains; some require a rich soil; but others will grow on clay, in sand, or even upon rocks, and in the water: to some a sunny exposition is necessary; but for others the shade is preferable. There are plants which thrive best in exposed situations, but in general, shelter is requisite. The skilful gardener, to whom study and experience have taught these qualities, carefully attends to them in his operations; knowing that thereon Like thee to scorn dame Nature's simple fence; Though drunk with Gallic wine, and Gallic praise, depend the health and growth of his plants; and consequently the beauty of his plantations." Vide Diss. p. 77. The reader, 1 presume, will readily allow, that he never met with so much recondite truth, as this ancient Chinese here exhibits. 1 Vide (if it be extant) a poem under this title, for which (or for the publication of lord Bolingbroke's philosophical writings) There was a time, "in Esher's peaceful grove, Thy satire sure had given them both a stab, the person here mentioned received a considerable pension in the time of lord Bute's administration. This is the great and fundamental axiom, on which oriental taste is founded. It is therefore expressed here with the greatest precision, and in the identical phrase of the great original. The figurative terms, and even the explanatory simile, are entirely borrowed from sir William's Dissertation. "Nature" (says the Chinese, or sir William for them) "affords us but few materials to work with. Plants, grounds and water, are her only productions; and though both the forms and arrangements of these may be varied to an incredible degree, yet they have but few striking varieties, the rest being of the nature of changes rung upon bells, which, though in reality different, still produce the same uniform kind of gingling; the variation being too minute to be easily perceived." "Art must therefore supply the scantiness of Nature," &c. &c. page 14. And again," Our larger works are only a repetition of the small ones, like the honest bachelor's feast, which consisted in nothing but a multiplication of his own dinner; three legs of mutton and turnips, three roasted geese, and three buttered apple-pies." Preface, page 7. Prolong the peal, yet, spite of all your clatter, ! So Milton. Where the gorgeous east with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold. "In their lofty woods serpents and lizards, of many beautiful |