But claimed immortal satire for her own; With many a well aim'd thought, and pointed line, But soon the arts, once more, a dawn diffuse, Touch'd with the mania, now, what millions rage To shine the laureat blockheads of the age. The dire contagion creeps thro' every grade, Girls, coxcombs, peers, and patriots drive the trade: And e'en the hind, his fruitful fields forgot, For rhyme and misery leave his wife and cot. Ere, to his breast, the watchful mischief spread, Content and plenty cheer'd his little shed And while no thoughts of state perplex'd his mind, He laugh'd at toil, with health and vigour bless'd; No love to foster, no dear friend to wrong, By arms assail'd, we still can arms oppose, And rescue learning from her brutal foes; But when those foes to friendship make pretence, And tempt the judgment with the baits of sense, Carouse with passion, laugh at God's controul, And sack the little empire of the soul, What warning voice can save? Alas! 'tis o'er, The age of virtue will return no more; The doating world, its manly vigor flown, Wanders in mind, and dreams on folly's throne. Come then, sweet bard, again the cause defend, Be still the muses' and religion's friend; Again the banner of thy wrath display, And save the world from Darwin's tinsel lay. TO A ROBIN. From winter so dreary and long, Did she melt at thy comfortless lot? As thou pick'dst at the door of her cot? She did; and the wintry wind, May it howl not around her green grove; Be a bosom so gentle and kind, Only fann'd by the breathings of love. TO FANCY. Airy traveller, Queen of Song, At night while stretch'd on lowly bed, On sea-beat mount, and river'd vale. But the morn, tho' sweet and fair, Thus through life with thee I'll glide, Then lead on, delightful power, Rich or beggar'd, chain'd or free, IL PENSEROSO. I hate this spungy world, with all its store, Me, shall some little tranquil thatch receive, And laugh all day at Lady Fortune there. Why should I mingle in the mazy ring, Of drunken folly at the shrine of chance? Where insect pleasure flits on burnished wing, Eludes our wishes, and keeps up the dance. When in the quiet of an humble home, Beside the fountain, or upon the hill, Where strife and care and sorrow never come, I may be free and happy, if I will. SONG. Boy, shut to the door, and bid trouble begone, Our comfort this night from the glass shall be drawn, Who would not with pleasure the moments prolong, What art thou, kind power, that soft'nest me so, I know thee! for ever thy visit prolong, Sweet spirit of Friendship, Love, Wine, and a Song. See the joy-waking influence rapidly fly, The effulgence of rapture enamels each eye, On a sea of good humour floats gayly along, And now to the regions of Fancy we soar, Resolv'd like good fellows the time to prolong, For Friendship, the solace of mortals below, Good wine can content on misfortune bestow, Then fill, my good fellows, the moment prolong, A FLIGHT OF FANCY. For lonely shades, and rustic bed, I ask no melancholy shed, No hermit's dreary cave, not I. But where, to skirt some pleasant vale, And all her fragrant soul abound. In beauty's simple plumage drest, When twilight sleeps from year to year, And fringed plats, where Flora dwells, With the wild wood shall neighbour near. I'll find a blossom there for thee. And tufts where shelter'd hamlets stand. Some dingle oft shall court my eye To dance among the flow'rets there, Emboss'd with many an islet fair. In breezy isles and forests near, The sylvans oft their haunts shall leave, The lake-nymph's song, at silent eve. Shall tremble there; nor drug uncouth, Or bathe with death the serpent's tooth. No crusted ditch nor festering fen, But on the rose's dewy brink, Each prismy tear shall catch the gleam, The colours of the morning beam. And hie them to the silver lake. The muse shall hail, at peep of dawn, Monimia come and make it thine. To gamble round thy pleasant door; Of summer love for me shall shine; At sight of that fond smile of thine. And sport us 'neath the peaceful sky. That sees thy cheek with age grow pale, And the soul fading in thine eyes, We'll sigh and quit the weeping vale. WILLIAM RAY. WILLIAM RAY, one of the "Algerine Captives," was born in Salisbury, Connecticut, about 1772. His father was a farmer in moderate circumstances, and removing soon after his son's birth to a then unsettled part of the state of New York, the latter had few advantages of early education. After experimenting as a schoolmaster and country shopkeeper, and getting married, having lost, by arriving too late at Philadelphia, what he calls "a flattering prospect of finding a situation as an editor, at thirty dollars a month," he shipped, July 3, 1803, "in a low capacity" on board the U. S. frigate Philadelphia, Captain Bainbridge. On the 31st of October the vessel ran aground off Tripoli, was attacked by a single gun-boat, and struck her colors. The next morning the ship was afloat, but her officers and crew were ashore as prisoners. They were treated with great severity, badly fed and lodged, and set to work in December at raising an old wreck buried in the sand, which they had to shovel from under her and carry in baskets to the shore, working almost naked with the water up to their armpits. They VOL. I.-39 had afterwards, in March, to drag a heavy wagon Hail Independence! hail once more! A host of heroes bright with fame, Our grateful songs demand; And red victorious hand. That recreant horde of barb'rous foes, Can never stand the test, Thy spirit, born in darkest times, Where'er thy champions tread- And struck the oppressor dead. But in his fair one's arms. The Essex, after a cruise in the Mediterranean, reached home August, 1806. Her poet published an account of his adventures a few months after. He served in the militia at Plattsburg in 1812, and after several removes settled down with his family in the village of Onondaga Court-House. In 1821 he published at Auburn a small volume of "Poems on various subjects, religious, moral, sentimental, and humorous," with a sketch of his life. JOSIAH QUINCY. THE will of Josiah Quincy, Jr., contained the following bequest: "I give to my son, when he shall arrive to the age of fifteen years, Algernon Sidney's works, John Locke's works, Lord Bacon's works, Gordon's Tacitus, and Cato's Letters. May the spirit of liberty rest upon him!" The son has entered upon the full fruition and has made good use of this legacy. His long life has been devoted to the dissemination of knowledge, to the instruction of others in the good doctrines those good books have taught, while the "spirit of liberty" now rests like a sunset halo on that aged head. Whenever we read of an assemblage in his native city, convened by the rallying call of liberty, we find a portion of its record earnest words, which he has come forth from his retirement to utter. Even those who differ from him widely in opinion, as in domicile, must, or should, respect the energy and good intent of the old statesman and scholar. Jorah Quin Josiah Quincy was born in 1772, prepared for college at the Phillips Academy in Andover, and graduated at Harvard in 1790. His Commencement oration was on the "Ideal Superiority of the present age in Literature and Politics." He studied law with the Hon. Judge Tudor, and in 1797 married Eliza, daughter of John Morton, a merchant of New York. In 1804 he was elected to the State Senate, and in 1805 to Congress, where he remained until 1813. He was warmly opposed to the purchase of Louisiana, and prophesied a dissolution of the Union as the result of an enlargement of the Confederacy beyond its limits at the time of the formation of the Constitution. He was also an opponent of the Embargo. One of his speeches on this topic contains an eloquent though somewhat ornate passage. They who introduced it abjured it. They who advocated it did not wish, and scarcely knew, its use. And now that it is said to be extended over us, no man in this nation, who values his reputation, will take his Bible oath that it is in effectual and legal operation. There is an old riddle, on a coffin, (said Mr. Quincy,) which I presume we all learnt when we were boys, that is as perfect a representation of the origin, progress, and present state of this thing called non-intercourse, as is possible to be conceived: There was a man bespoke a thing, The man that spoke for it did not use it,- True it is, that if this non-intercourse shall ever be, in reality, subtended over us, the similitude will fail, in a material point. The poor tenant of the coffin is ignorant of his state. But the poor people of the United States will be literally buried alive in nonintercourse, and realize the grave closing on themselves and their hopes, with a full and cruel consciousness of all the horrors of their condition. His speech on the influence of government patronage, delivered January 1, 1811, attracted much attention. "It ought," said John Quincy Adams, "to be hung up in every office of every office-holder in the Union." He describes the office hunters. Let now, one of your great office-holders-a collector of the customs, a marshal, a commissioner of loans, a post-master in one of your cities, or any officer, agent, or factor, for your territories, or public lands, or person holding a place of minor distinction, but of considerable profit-be called upon to pay the last great debt of nature. The poor man shall hardly be dead, he shall not be cold,-long before the corpse is in the coffin, the mail shall be crowded to repletion with letters, certificates, recommendations, and representations, and every species of sturdy, sycophantic solicitation, by which obtrusive mendicity seeks charity or invites compassion. Why, sir, we hear the clamor of the craving animals at the treasury-trough here in this capitol. Such running, such jostling, such wriggling, such clambering over one another's backs, such squealing because the tub is so narrow and the company so crowded! No, sir; let us not talk of stoical apathy towards the things of the national treasury either in this people, or in the representatives, or senators. Without meaning, in this place, to cast any particular reflections upon this, or upon any other executive, this I will say, that if no additional guards are provided, and now, after the spirit of party has brought into so full activity the spirit of patronage, there never will be a president of these United States, elected by means now in use, who, if he deals honestly with himself, will not be able, on quitting, to address his presidential chair as John Falstaff addressed Prince Hal: "Before I knew thee I knew nothing, and now I am but little better than one of the wicked." The possession of that station, under the reign of party, will make a man so acquainted with the corrupt principles of human conduct, he will behold our nature in so hungry, and shivering, and craving a state, and be compelled so constantly to observe the solid rewards daily demanded by way of compensation for outrageous patriotism,-that, if he escape out of that atmosphere without partaking of its corruption, he must be below or above the ordinary condition of mortal nature. Is it possible, sir, that he should remain altogether uninfected? Mr. Quincy was an opponent of the war of 1812, and soon after his election to the Senate of his state, June, 1813, gave a decided proof of his opposition by offering the following preamble and resolution in reference to the gallant conduct of Captain Lawrence in the destruction of the British ship of war Peacock by the sloop Hornet. Whereas, It has been found that former resolutions of this kind, passed on similar occasions, relative to other officers engaged in similar service, have given great discontent to many of the good people of this commonwealth, it being considered by them as an encouragement and excitement to the countenance of the present unjust, unnecessary, and iniquitous war; and, on this account, the Senate of Massachusetts have deemed it their duty to refrain from acting on the said proposition. And whereas, this determination of the Senate may, without explanation, be misconstrued into an intentional slight of Capt. Lawrence, and a denial of his particular merits, the Senate therefore deem it their duty to declare that they have a high sense of the naval skill and military and civil virtues of Capt. James Lawrence; and they have been withheld from acting on said proposition solely from considerations relative to the nature and principle of the present war: and, to the end that all misapprehension on this subject may be obviated, Resolved, as the sense of the Senate of Massachusetts, that, in a war like the present, waged without justifiable cause, and prosecuted in a manner which indicates that conquest and ambition are its real motives, it is not becoming a moral and religious people to express any approbation of mili tary or naval exploits which are not immediately connected with the defence of our sea-coast and soil. Both were afterwards, January 23, 1824, by a vote of the body expunged from its records. Mr. Quincy remained in the Senate until 1821, and in 1822-3 was a member of the House. In 1822 he was appointed Judge of the Municipal Court, but resigned the office on his election as Mayor of Boston in 1823. He held the office until he declined a re-election in December, 1828. The House of Industry, the House for the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders, the admirable market-house which bears his name, the efficient Fire Department of the city, and numerous important streets and avenues, are some of the monuments of his vigorous administration. He was to be seen throughout his mayoralty traversing the streets and lanes at daybreak on horseback, personally inspecting their condition, and in every other department of duty was equally active. In January, 1829, Mr. Quincy, to use his own expression, was called from the "dust and clamor of the capitol" to the presidency of Harvard University. He was as much surprised at the appointment, he said, "as if he had received a call to the pastoral charge of the Old South Church." He delivered his inaugural address in Latin on the second of June, and retained the office until his resignation in 1845, his academic rule being marked by the same zeal and prosperity which had attended his civic sway. During its course debts were paid, endowments secured, buildings renovated, and the general efficiency of the ancient institution largely promoted. Since his retirement from Harvard Mr. Quincy has not held any public office. He is often, however, called upon to preside at assemblages of his fellow-citizens, and is always ready to lend the great influence which a long life of honorable public service has added to the ancestral honors of his name in the furtherance of measures which he deems of national benefit. He is often present on occasions of public festivity, enjoying a well deserved reputation as an after dinner speaker and wit. One of his happy epigrams is recorded in the diary of the Rev. Joseph S. Buckminster. President Nott preached in Brattle Street Church; the fullest audience ever known there, except on ordination-day. Epigram made on by Josiah Quincy. Delight and instruction have people, I wot, Who in seeing not see, and in hearing hear not. At a dinner given soon after the completion of the Quincy market, Judge Story gave the toast, "May the fame of our honored Mayor prove as durable as the material of which the beautiful market-house is constructed." Quincy instantly responded, "That stupendous monument of the wisdom of our forefathers, the Supreme Court of the United States; In the event of a vacancy may it be raised one Story higher." The same distinguished name was used in a still happier manner at a Phi Beta Kappa dinner, after the institution of the Story Association, when Mr. Quincy proposed "The Members of the Bar; Let them rise as high as they may they can never rise higher than one Story." He once remarked of his college, "May it, like the royal mail packets, distribute good letters over our land." When Wirt visited Boston in 1829 he was received by Quincy, who, in the course of conversation, asked him in which college he had graduated. Wirt in a letter at the time tells the sequel. "I was obliged to admit that I had never been a student of any college. A shade of emhis countenance; but he recovered in an instant, barrassment, scarcely perceptible, just flitted across and added most gracefully, upon my word you furnish a very strong argument against the utility of a college education.' Was not this neatly said, and very much in the style of Bishop Madison?" Mr. Quincy, in addition to his other public services, is the author of several important volumes. His Memoir of Josiah Quincy, Jr., published in 1825, we have already had occasion to express our obligations to in writing an account of that distinguished patriot. It is an admirable monument of filial reverence. His History of Harvardt has rendered a similar service to our article on that University. His Centennial Address on the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of Boston, 1830, and History of the Boston Athenæum, with Biographical Notices of its devoted Founders, are equally valuable contributions to civic and literary history.§ JOHN LATHROP, THE son of a minister at Boston, of the same name, || was born in that city in January, 1772; was a graduate of Harvard in 1789; studied law in the office of Christopher Gore; commenced the practice of the profession, and in 1797 removed to Dedham. The society of Fisher Ames and the appointment of clerk of Norfolk county did not long retain him there. He returned to Boston, and lived among the wits, Robert Treat Paine, Jr., Charles Prentiss, T and others, con *Kennedy's Memoirs of Wirt, ii. 275. + Cambridge, 1840. Cambridge, 1851. Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, pp. 258-278. John Lathrop, 1740-1816, was born in Norwich, Ct.; studied at Princeton; assisted Wheelock in his Indian school, at Lebanon; was ordained and became pastor of the Second Church in Boston. He published a number of ordination and occasional discourses, amongst others an Historical Discourse at the commencement of the Nineteenth Century, which are enumerated by Allen. Joseph Lathrop, another divine of the family, 1731-1821, was also born at Norwich; studied at Yale, and was pastor of the church in West Springfield, Mass. His ministerial life extended over sixty-three years. His published sermons form a large collection, a portion of which were issued in seven volumes; one of them, a posthumous publication, containing his Autobiography, "a production," says Allen, "remarkable for its simplicity and candor." Buckingham, in his Newspaper Reminiscences, has traced the career of Prentiss through a series of journals with which he was connected. He was born in 1774, the son of the Rev. Caleb Prentiss, minister of Reading, Mass.; studied at Harvard, and upon leaving college, edited, in 1795, the Rural Repository, at Leominster, Mass., a weekly paper of a literary character, and "short lived." One of his sportive effusions in this journal was a "will" in verse, written in emulation of a similar college production of the wit Biglow. The humor turns upon a custom of Harvard, of the transmission of a jackknife from the ugliest member of one senior class to the ugliest member of the next. The verses may be found in Buckingham, ii. 269. A Collection of Fugitive Essays, in Prose and Verse, was published by Prentiss at Leominster, in 1797 -a pleasant volume. When the Repository expired, Prentiss published The Political Focus at the same place; afterwards, The Washington Federalist, at Georgetown, D.C.; the AntiDemocrat at Baltimore, and in the same city a literary paper, The Child of Pallas. This was at the beginning of the century. In 1804 he visited England. In 1809 he published The Thistle, a theatrical paper of a brief existence. After 1810 he reported the Congressional proceedings at Washington, and edited the Independent American. In 1813, a Life of General Eaton from his pen was published at Brookfield. In 1817 and 1818 he edited the Virginia Patriot, at Richmond. He died in Brim |