placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together. Spectator, No. 26 As a poet, Addison does not take the highest rank, and yet he has written much that would be more valued had it not been thrown into the shade by the comparative brilliancy of his prose. One of his best pieces is his poet ical Letter to Lord Halifax, written from Italy in 1701. Of this Dr. Drake thus speaks: "Had he written nothing else, this Epistle ought to have ac quired for him the reputation of a good poet. Its versification is remarkably sweet and polished, its vein of description usually rich and clear, and its sen timents often pathetic, and sometimes even sublime. We see Addison, with the ardent enthusiasm of a mind fresh from the study of the classics, exploring with unwearied fondness and assiduity the neglected relics of antiquity, and tracing every stream and mountain recorded in the songs of the Bard. His praises of liberty break forth with uncommon warmth and beauty; with that energy of phrase and thought which only genuine emotion can supply." FROM THE LETTER FROM ITALY. For wheresoe'er I turn my ravish'd eyes, Essays on the Tatler, Guardian, and Spectator, vol. 1. p. 315. With all the gifts that heaven and earth impart, The reddening orange, and the swelling grain: O Liberty, thou goddess heavenly bright, In ten degrees of more indulgent skies; Nor at the coarseness of our heaven repine, Though o'er our heads the frozen Pleiads shine: 'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile. PARAPHRASE OF PSALM XXIII. I. The Lord my pasture shall prepare, II. When in the sultry glebe I faint, III. Though in the paths of death I tread, IV. Though in a bare and rugged way, ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA. Died 1720. This lady was the daughter of Sir William Kingsmill, of Sidmonton, in the county of Southampton, and was married to Heneage, Earl of Winchelsea. A collection of her poems was printed in 1713. "It is remarkable," says Wordsworth, "that excepting a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, and some delightful pictures in the poems of Lady Winchelsea, the poetry of the period intervening between the publica tion of the Paradise Lost and the Seasons, does not contain a single new image of external nature." THE ATHEIST AND THE ACORN. Methinks the world is oddly made, Behold, quoth he, that mighty thing, Whilst on this Oak a fruit so small, That who with sense surveys this all, Its ill contrivance knows. My better judgment would have hung And left this mast, thus slightly strung, No more the caviller could say, Th' offended part with tears ran o'er, As punish'd for the sin; Fool! had that bough a pumpkin bore, LIFE'S PROGRESS. How gayly is at first begun Whilst yet that sprightly morning sun, How smiling the world's prospect lies, How soft the first ideas prove, Which wander through our minds! Our sighs are then but vernal air, But, oh! too soon, alas! we climb, The gently-rising hill of Time, From whence with grief we see that prime And all its sweetness end. The die now cast, our station known, Fond expectation past: The thorns which former days had sown, Through which we toil at last. Whilst every care's a driving harm, Which faded smiles no more can charm, Or the parentage of Prior very little is known. He was nephew of the keeper of a tavern at Charing Cross, where he was found by the Earl of Dorset, and sent, at his expense, to be educated at Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship. By the same nobleman's influence, he went as secretary to the English ambassador at the Hague. In 1697 he was secretary of lega tion at the treaty of Ryswick, and the next year held the same office at the court of France. At fifty-three years of age he found himself, after all his important employments, with no other means of subsistence than his fellowship at Cambridge; but the publication of his poems by subscription, and the kindness of Lord Hasley, restored him to easy circumstances for the rest of his life. He died, after a lingering illness, in 1721, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. Prior," says Campbell, "was one of the last of the race of poets who relied for ornament on scholastic allusion and pagan machinery; but he used them like Swift, more in jest than earnest, and with good effect." His poetry has the qualities of ease, fluency, and correctness. We give one specimen: AN EPITAPH. Interr'd beneath this marble stone They walk'd, and eat, good folks: what then: Their beer was strong; their wine was port; Just when it grew not fit to eat. They paid the church and parish rate, For which they claim'd their Sunday's due, |