bear the undoubted stamp of genius, and few that may be classed among the nobler productions of our British Bards; his Tragedies, "Julius Cæsar," and "the Death of Brutus," possess but little merit; and perhaps the world is more indebted to him for his patronage of Dryden than for his contributions to the national store of poetical wealth. It is said, indeed, that the obligation was amply repaid; that the lesser had the help of the greater poet in composing the Essay on Satire-the work to which Sheffield is mainly indebted for the limited portion of fame that posterity is satisfied to allow him.

If Sheffield enjoyed a high reputation, while alive, "favour and flattery are now at an end; criticism is no longer softened by his bounties or awed by his splendour, and, being able to take a more steady view, discovers him to be a writer that sometimes glimmers but rarely shines, feebly laborious, and at best but pretty." Dr. Johnson adds to this remark-" His songs are upon common topics; he hopes, and grieves, and repents, and despairs, and rejoices, like any other maker of little stanzas; to be great, he hardly tries; to be gay, is hardly in his power."

The Poets, contemporary with Sheffield, are ingenious and eloquent in his praise; but unhappily, in those days, wealth and rank were certain to attract the heirs of Parnassus. Independence of mind at least-was rarely the high privilege of the Bard.

FROM wars and plagues come no such harms, As from a nymph so full of charms,

So much sweetness in her face,

In her motions such a grace,

In her kind inviting eyes

Such a soft enchantment lies;
That we please ourselves too soon,
And are with empty hopes undone.
After all her softness, we

Are but slaves, while she is free;
Free, alas! from all desire,
Except to set the world on fire.

Q Q

Thou, fair dissembler, dost but thus Deceive thyself, as well as us.

Like a restless monarch, thou

Would'st rather force mankind to bow,
And venture round the world to roam,
Than govern peaceably at home.
But trust me, Celia, trust me when
Apollo's self inspires my pen,

One hour of love's delight outweighs
Whole years of universal praise;
And one adorer, kindly us'd,

Gives truer joys than crowds refus'd.

For what does youth and beauty serve? Why more than all your sex deserve? Why such soft alluring arts

To charm our eyes, and melt our hearts?
By our loss you nothing gain;
Unless you love, you please in vain.

ON THE TIMES.

SINCE in vain our parsons teach,
Hear, for once, a poet preach.

Vice has lost its very name,

Skill and cozenage thought the same;
Only playing well the game.

Foul contrivances we see

Call'd but ingenuity:

Ample fortunes often made
Out of frauds in every trade,
Which an aukward child afford
Enough to wed the greatest lord.
The miser starves to raise a son,
But, if once the fool is gone,
Years of thrift scarce serve a day,
Rake-hell squanders all away.
Husbands seeking for a place,
Or toiling for their pay;
While the wives undo their race
By petticoats and play;
Breeding boys to drink and dice,
Carrying girls to comedies,

Where mama's intrigues are shown,
Which ere long will be their own.
Having first at sermon slept,
Tedious day is weekly kept
By worse hypocrites than men,
Till Monday comes to cheat again.
Ev'n among the noblest-born,
Moral virtue is a scorn;
Gratitude, but rare at best,
And fidelity a jest.

All our wit but party-mocks,
All our wisdom raising stocks:
Counted folly to defend
Sinking side, or falling friend.
Long an officer may serve,
Prais'd and wounded, he may
No receipt, to make him rise,
Like inventing loyal lies.

starve:

We, whose ancestors have shin'd

In arts of peace, and fields of fame,
To ill and idleness inclin'd,

Now are grown a public shame.

Fatal that intestine jar,

Which produc'd our civil war!

Ever since, how sad a race!
Senseless, violent, and base!

SONG.

FROM all uneasy passions free,
Revenge, ambition, jealousy,
Contented I had been too blest,
If love and you had let me rest;
Yet that dull life I now despise ;
Safe from your eyes,

I fear'd no griefs, but then I found no joys.

Amidst a thousand kind desires,

Which beauty moves, and love inspires;
Such pangs I feel of tender fear,

No heart so soft as mine can bear.

Yet I'll defy the worst of harms;

Such are your charms,

Tis worth a life to die within your arms.

MATHEW PRIOR was born in 1664; the place of his birth is disputed; the honour having been given to London, and also to Winbourne in Dorsetshire. His parents were of humble condition; but on the death of his father, he was adopted by an uncle, a vintner in Charing Cross, who, although he designed his nephew for his own business, sent him to Westminster School. While residing with this uncle, there chanced one of those singular incidents which determine the fate of genius; great minds will, it is true, almost invariably work their way to distinction; but how many obstacles may be removed by a single favourable circumstance. The Earl of Dorset being with other gentlemen sitting in the house, a dispute arose relative to a passage in Horace, when one of the party affirmed that "there was a young fellow there who could set them all right." The lad was sent for, and Mathew Prior explained away the difficulty so easily and with so much modesty, that the earl became his patron, and soon afterwards sent him to St. John's College, Cambridge; where he was admitted to a fellowship in 1686.

He was first known publicly by his poem of the Country Mouse and City Mouse ;a poem avowedly written in ridicule of Dryden's Hind and Panther. It was printed in 1687. But he soon became distinguished as a Diplomatist, was Under Secretary of State, and took an active part in all the events of the time. About the year 1701, however, he deserted the Whigs, with whom he had previously acted; on their return to power in 1714, they punished him for his defection; Walpole moved an impeachment against him on a charge of High Treason, grounded upon the part he had taken at the congress at Utrecht, and after remaining two years in close custody, he was discharged without having been brought to trial.

He died at Wimpole, the seat of Lord Oxford, on the 18th of September, 1721;—and was interred in Westminster Abbey, where a monument was erected to his memory,-the Poet having left by will the sum of five hundred pounds to defray the expenditure which human vanity suggested.

Prior, though he had held several lucrative appointments, found himself compelled, after his disgrace, to print his poems by subscription-his friends, however, having undertaken to conduct the publication in such a manner that "the dignity of a minister in disgrace should not be injured by it." The sum thus procured, together with the income derived from his fellowship, which he had prudently retained, "every thing he had besides being precarious," enabled him to pass the later portion of his life in ease and comfort.

His principal poems are "Solomon," "Alma, or the Progress of the Mind," and "Henry and Emma." Solomon is doubtless the most meritorious; it is full of fine thoughts, easy and correct in its versification and abundant in imagery-but it is tedious. "Alma” he has himself described as "a loose and hasty scribble, written to relieve the tedious hours of imprisonment." Henry and Emma, the most popular of his works, is but the remodelling of an ancient Ballad-the Not-browne Mayde. The subject is one of an unpleasing nature. It describes a lover as making trial of his mistress's affections, by declaring himself guilty of every vice-and finding her cling to him though she believes him leprous with sin. His minor poems are very numerous; some of them are full of grace and wit. They consist of "public panegyrics, amorous odes, serious reflections or idle tales," and embrace every species of composition from the grotesque to the solemn-in none of which, according to the faint praise of Johnson, has the Poet "failed so as to incur derision or disgrace." Such restrained commendation is not justice to the memory of Mathew Prior. We are not disposed to place him very high in the list of British Poets; but his works abound in humour; many of his "Tales" are admirably and gracefully told; and the more ambitious of his compositions contain passages that startle by their point and beauty; while the language is always polished, and the descriptions natural and fine. His muse however must bear the stigma that

"Want of decency is want of sense,"

and according to the accounts of some of his contemporaries his habits as well as his thoughts were debased by low dissipation. He was a sensualist, who knew not the true passion of love:-his poems afford abundant proof that he had never felt its elevating nature.