But what can slaves? What can the nerveless arm, "As when a roaming vulture on the wing In realms unknown, which feverish fancy paints To their keen sight, her fertile bosom spreads, Of human woes to rend the hearer's heart, The planetary mistress of my birth, Thy numbers, heavenly cherub, to my strain! Belt the wide globe-but mount, ye guardian waves, By supplication they extend by force, Of love and human kindness in this world, On which I now am ent'ring? Gracious heaven, If, as I trust, thou hast bestow'd a sense Of thy best gift benevolence on me, That spark of thy divinity alive, Till time shall end me! So when all the blasts Of malice and unkindness, which my fate May have in store, shall vent their rage upon me, Feeling, but still forgiving, the assault, I may persist with patience to devote My life, my love, my labours to mankind." Somewhere about this time Lord Halifax lost his wife, in whom Cumberland also lost a sincere and tender friend. She was not of noble birth, but she possessed virtues which might have ennobled any birth. Her advancement to a title never elated her mind beyond the due dignity of her station; she knew herself accurately, nor wished to act beyond her sphere; and she studied successfully to contribute to her husband's happiness and welfare, both by her affection and her prudence. His grief for her loss was vehement and sincere, and his friends regretted her death because the calm serenity of her temper had always proved an admirable counterpoise to the fiery qualities of her lord's, The duties of his station called him off from unavailing grief however, and Cumberland attended him to London at the beginning of the winter season. His situation with Lord Halifax must have been at this time rather nominal than real, for he represents himself as passing his time in all the solitude of a hermit, devoted only to his books, and visited only by one friend of the name of Higgs. But that friend could not supply every want of his heart. His separations from his family were long and frequent; and accustomed as he had been to all the endearing intercourse of a parent's roof, he found nothing in the metropolis which could supply its loss. Luckily, however, at the very moment when these thoughts were acquiring a paramount domination, and were leading him to the project of renouncing his post for retirement and home, his good and amiable father, actuated by similar impressions, had concluded an exchange for his living at Stanwick, with the Rev. Mr. Samuel Knight, and, with permission of the Bishop of London, took the vicarage of Fulham as an equivalent. Thus the wishes, most ardently entertained by him, were at once gratified, and his situation rendered less irksome, by being compatible with a nearer and more frequent intercourse with his family. At this time, Sherlock was Bishop of London, but he was in the last stage of bodily decay. Cumberland was occasionally admitted to his presence, in company with his father. He found him in a state awfully calculated to humble our pride, if any thing could humble it, save our own calamities, and even they cannot always do it. His speech was almost unintelligible, and his features hideously distorted by the palsy. But his mind was entire amid the general wreck of his corporeal faculties, for in this state he arranged the last volumes of his sermons for publication: nor did the selection diminish aught of that high fame which his preceding volumes had obtained. In the adjoining parish of Hammersmith, lived the celebrated Bubb Dodington, at a splendid villa, which he fantastically enough denominated La Trappe: an appellation bestowed with as much propriety as if a man should call Newgate the Elysian Fields. Here he was surrounded by a train of needy dependants, artists, authors, and physicians, who kept their stations about him by a subserviency not always very reputable, I suspect. Ralph was one of these: a man noted only for his political venality, and as one of the heroes of the Dunciad*. Paul Whitehead was another, and Dodington would willingly have associated Johnson with them, as we learn from a curious note preserved in Hawkins' life of him; but Johnson declined the honour, and ridiculed him who proffered it, in one of his Ramblers. These, indeed, were not the only visitors at this celebrated mansion. Men of virtue and talent sometimes assembled there, and diversified a scene which else had presented nothing but wealthy arrogance on one side, and dependent meanness on the other. Of these better associates Cumberland has given a picture so lively and amusing, that my readers will thank me for its transcription here. may be observed, indeed, that Cumberland never appears to greater advantage than as the narrator of familiar scenes of life. His delineations are so accurate, and his colouring so vivid, that the picture is placed before us with all the strong characters of reality. This was a talent which he eminently possessed; and it is, in fact, so nearly allied to It * Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls, |