the Athenaid the former bearing reference to the memorable defence of Thermopylæ, and the latter continuing the war between the Greeks and Persians. The length of these poems, their want of sustained interest, and lesser peculiarities not suited to the existing poetical taste, render them next to unknown in the present day. But there is smoothness and even vigour, a calm moral dignity and patriotic elevation in Leonidas, which might even yet find admirers. Thomson is said to have exclaimed, when he heard of the work of Glover: He write an epic poem, who never saw a mountain!' Yet Thomson himself, familiar as he was in his youth with mountain scenery, was tame and commonplace when he ventured on classic or epic subjects. Leonidas first appeared in 1737, and was hailed with acclamations by the Opposition or Prince of Wales's party, of which Glover was an active member. He was eloquent, intrepid, and of incorruptible integrity. In 1739, he published London, or the Progress of Commerce, a poem written to excite the national spirit against the Spaniards; in 1742, he appeared before the bar of the House of Commons, the chosen delegate of the London merchants, who complained of the neglect of their trade and interests. In 1744, he declined, as already mentioned, to join Mallet in writing a Life of the Duke of Marlborough, though his affairs had become somewhat embarrassed. A fortunate speculation in copper enabled him to retrieve his position, and in 1761 he was returned M.P. for Weymouth. He distinguished himself by his advocacy of the mercantile interests, and during his leisure enlarged his poem of Leonidas, from nine to twelve books (1770), and wrote as a sequel to it, the Athenaid, which was published after his death (in 1788). Two tragedies by Glover, Boadicea (1753), and Medea (1761), are but indifferent performances. His chief honour is that of having been an eloquent and patriotic city merchant, at the same time that he was eminent as a scholar and man of letters.

Address of Leonidas. He alone

Remains unshaken. Rising, he displays
His godlike presence. Dignity and grace
Adorn his frame, and manly beauty, joined
With strength Herculean. On his aspect shines
Sublimest virtue and desire of fame,
Where justice gives the laurel; in his eye
The inextinguishable spark, which fires
The souls of patriots; while his brow supports
Undaunted valour, and contempt of death.
Serene he rose, and thus addressed the throng:
'Why this astonishment on every face,
Ye men of Sparta? Does the name of death
Create this fear and wonder? O my friends!
Why do we labour through the arduous paths
Which lead to virtue? Fruitless were the toil.
Above the reach of human feet were placed
The distant summit, if the fear of death
Could intercept our passage. But in vain
His blackest frowns and terrors he assumes
To shake the firmness of the mind which knows
That, wanting virtue, life is pain and woe;
That, wanting liberty, even virtue mourns,
And looks around for happiness in vain.
Then speak, O Sparta! and demand my life;
My heart, exulting, answers to thy call,

And smiles on glorious fate. To live with fame

The gods allow to many; but to die With equal lustre is a blessing Heaven Selects from all the choicest boons of fate, And with a sparing hand on few bestows.' Salvation thus to Sparta he proclaimed. Joy, wrapt awhile in admiration, paused, Suspending praise; nor praise at last resounds In high acclaim to rend the arch of heaven; A reverential murmur breathes applause. The nature of the poem affords scope for interesting situations and descriptions of natural objects in a romantic country, which Glover occasionally avails himself of with good effect. There is great beauty and classic elegance in this sketch of the fountain at the dwelling of Oileus:

Beside the public way an oval fount
Of marble sparkled with a silver spray
Of falling rills, collected from above.
The army halted, and their hollow casques
Dipped in the limpid stream. Behind it rose
An edifice, composed of native roots,
And oaken trunks of knotted girth unwrought.
Within were beds of moss. Old battered arms
Hung from the roof. The curious chiefs approach.
These words, engraven on a tablet rude,
Megistias reads; the rest in silence hear:
'Yon marble fountain, by Oileus placed,
To thirsty lips in living water flows;
For weary steps he framed this cool retreat;
A grateful offering here to rural peace,
His dinted shield, his helmet he resigned.
O passenger! if born to noble deeds,
Thou wouldst obtain perpetual grace from Jove,
Devote thy vigour to heroic toils,

And thy decline to hospitable cares.
Rest here; then seek Oileus in his vale.'

In the Athenaid we have a continuation of the same classic story and landscape. The following is an exquisite description of a night-scene : Silver Phoebe spreads

A light reposing on the quiet lake,
Save where the snowy rival of her hue,
The gliding swan, behind him leaves a trail
In luminous vibration. Lo! an isle
Swells on the surface. Marble structures there
New gloss of beauty borrow from the moon
To deck the shore. Now silence gently yields
To measured strokes of oars. The orange groves,
In rich profusion round the fertile verge,
Impart to fanning breezes fresh perfumes
Exhaustless, visiting the scene with sweets,
Which soften even Briareus; but the son
Of Gobryas, heavy with devouring care,
Uncharmed, unheeding sits.

The scene presented by the shores of Salamis on the morning of the battle is thus strikingly depicted. The poet gives no burst of enthusiasm to kindle up his page, and his versification retains most of its usual hardness and want of flow and cadence; yet the assemblage described is so vast and magnificent, and his enumeration is so varied, that the picture carries with it a host of spirit-stirring associations:

The Armies at Salamis.

O sun! thou o'er Athenian towers, The citadel and fanes in ruin huge, Dost, rising now, illuminate a scene More new, more wondrous to thy piercing eye Than ever time disclosed. Phaleron's wave

Presents three thousand barks in pendants rich;
Spectators, clustering like Hymettian bees,
Hang on the burdened shrouds, the bending
yards,

The reeling masts; the whole Crecropian strand,
Far as Eleusis, seat of mystic rites,

Is thronged with millions, male and female race,
Of Asia and of Libya, ranked on foot,
On horses, camels, cars. Egaleos tall,
Half down his long declivity, where spreads
A mossy level, on a throne of gold,
Displays the king, environed by his court,
In oriental pomp; the hill behind

By warriors covered, like some trophy huge,
Ascends in varied arms and banners clad;
Below the monarch's feet the immortal guard,
Line under line, erect their gaudy spears;

The arrangement, shelving downward to the beach,
Is edged by chosen horse. With blazing steel
Of Attic arms encircled, from the deep
Psyttalia lifts her surface to the sight,
Like Ariadne's heaven-bespangling crown,
A wreath of stars; beyond in dread array,
The Grecian fleet, four hundred galleys, fill
The Salaminian Straits; barbarian prows
In two divisions point to either mouth;
Six hundred brazen beaks of tower-like ships,
Unwieldy bulks; the gently swelling soil
Of Salamis, rich island, bounds the view.
Along her silver-sanded verge arrayed,
The men-at-arms exalt their naval spears,
Of length terrific. All the tender sex,
Ranked by Timothea, from a green ascent,
Look down in beauteous order on their sires,
Their husbands, lovers, brothers, sons, prepared
To mount the rolling deck. The younger dames
In bridal robes are clad; the matrons sage,
In solemn raiment, worn on sacred days;
But white in vesture, like their maiden breasts,
Where Zephyr plays, uplifting with his breath
The loosely waving folds, a chosen line
Of Attic graces in the front is placed;
From each fair head the tresses fall, entwined
With newly gathered flowerets; chaplets gay
The snowy hand sustains; the native curls,
O'ershading half, augment their powerful charms;
While Venus, tempered by Minerva, fills
Their eyes with ardour, pointing every glance
To animate, not soften. From on high
Her large controlling orbs Timothea rolls,
Surpassing all in stature, not unlike
In majesty of shape the wife of Jove,
Presiding o'er the empyreal fair.

A popular vitality has been awarded to a ballad of Glover's, while his epics have sunk into oblivion:

Admiral Hosier's Ghost.*

As near Portobello lying

On the gently swelling flood,

At midnight, with streamers flying, Our triumphant navy rode;

* Written on the taking of Carthagena from the Spaniards, 1739. The case of Hosier, which is here so pathetically represented, was briefly this: In April 1726, that commander was sent with a strong fleet into the Spanish West Indies, to block up the galleons in the ports of that country; or, should they presume to come out, to seize and carry them into England. He accordingly arrived at the Bastimentos, near Portobello; but being restricted by his orders from obeying the dictates of his courage, lay inactive on that station until he became the jest of the Spaniards. He afterwards removed to Carthagena, and continued cruising in those seas until the far greater part of his men perished deplorably by the diseases of that unhealthy climate. This brave man, seeing his best officers and men thus daily swept away, his ship exposed to inevitable destruction, and himself made the sport of the enemy, is said to have died of a broken heart. -PERCY.

There while Vernon sat all glorious
From the Spaniards' late defeat,
And his crews, with shouts victorious,
Drank success to England's fleet;

On a sudden, shrilly sounding,
Hideous yells and shrieks were heard;
Then, each heart with fear confounding,
A sad troop of ghosts appeared;
All in dreary hammocks shrouded,
Which for winding-sheets they wore,
And, with looks by sorrow clouded,
Frowning on that hostile shore.

On them gleamed the moon's wan lustre,
When the shade of Hosier brave
His pale bands was seen to muster,
Rising from their watery grave:
O'er the glimmering wave he hied him,
Where the Burford reared her sail,
With three thousand ghosts beside him,
And in groans did Vernon hail.

'Heed, oh heed our fatal story!

I am Hosier's injured ghost;
You who now have purchased glory
At this place where I was lost :
Though in Portobello's ruin,

You now triumph free from fears,
When you think on my undoing,

You will mix your joys with tears.

'See these mournful spectres sweeping
Ghastly o'er this hated wave,
Whose wan cheeks are stained with weeping;
These were English captains brave.
Mark those numbers, pale and horrid,
Who were once my sailors bold;
Lo! each hangs his drooping forehead,
While his dismal tale is told.

'I, by twenty sail attended,

Did this Spanish town affright; Nothing then its wealth defended, But my orders-not to fight! Oh! that in this rolling ocean

I had cast them with disdain, And obeyed my heart's warm motion, To have quelled the pride of Spain!

'For resistance I could fear none;
But with twenty ships had done
What thou, brave and happy Vernon,
Hast achieved with six alone.
Then the Bastimentos never

Had our foul dishonour seen,
Nor the seas the sad receiver

Of this gallant train had been.

'Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismaying,
And her galleons leading home,
Though condemned for disobeying,
I had met a traitor's doom:
To have fallen, my country crying,
"He has played an English part,"
Had been better far than dying
Of a grieved and broken heart.

'Unrepining at thy glory,

Thy successful arms we hail; But remember our sad story,

And let Hosier's wrongs prevail. Sent in this foul clime to languish, Think what thousands fell in vain, Wasted with disease and anguish, Not in glorious battle slain.

'Hence with all my train attending,
From their oozy tombs below,
Through the hoary foam ascending,
Here I feed my constant woe.
Here the Bastimentos viewing,
We recall our shameful doom,
And, our plaintive cries renewing,
Wander through the midnight gloom.
'O'er these waves for ever mourning
Shall we roam, deprived of rest,
If, to Britain's shores returning,
You neglect my just request;
After this proud foe subduing,
When your patriot friends you see,
Think on vengeance for my ruin,

And for England-shamed in me.'

WILLIAM MASON.

His

WILLIAM MASON, the friend and literary executor of Gray, long survived the connection which did him so much honour, but he appeared early as a poet. He was the son of the Rev. Mr Mason, vicar of St Trinity, Yorkshire, where he was born in 1725. At Pembroke College, Cambridge, he became acquainted with Gray, who assisted him in obtaining his degree of M.Á. His first literary production was a poem, entitled Isis, being an attack on the Jacobitism of Oxford, to which Thomas Warton replied in his Triumph of Isis. In 1753 appeared his tragedy of Elfrida, 'written,' says Southey, 'on an artificial model, and in a gorgeous diction, because he thought Shakspeare had precluded all hope of excellence in any other form of drama.' The model of Mason was the Greek drama, and he introduced into his play the classic accompaniment of the chorus. A second drama, Caraciacus, is of a higher cast than Elfrida: more noble and spirited in language, and of more sustained dignity in scenes, situations, and character. Mason also wrote a series of odes on Independence, Memory, Melancholy, and the Fall of Tyranny, in which his gorgeousness of diction swells into extravagance and__bombast. greatest poetical work is his English Garden, a long descriptive poem in blank verse, extended over four books, which were published separately between 1772 and 1782. He wrote odes to the naval officers of Great Britain, to the Honourable William Pitt, and in commemoration of the Revolution of 1688. Mason, under the name of Malcolm Macgregor, published a lively satire, entitled An Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers, Knight, 1773. The taste for Chinese pagodas and Eastern bowers is happily ridiculed in this production, so different from the other poetical works of Mason. Gray having left Mason a legacy of £500, together with his books and manuscripts, the latter discharged the debt due to his friend's memory, by publishing, in 1775, the poems of Gray with memoirs of his life. As in his dramas Mason had made an innovation on the established taste of the times, he ventured, with greater success, to depart from the practice of English authors, in writing the life of Gray. Instead of presenting a continuous narrative, in which the biographer alone is visible, he incorporated the journals and letters of the poet in chronological order, thus making the subject of the memoir in some degree his own biographer. The plan was afterwards adopted by Boswell in his Life of Johnson, and

has been sanctioned by subsequent usage, in all cases where the subject is of importance enough to demand copious information and minute personal details. The circumstances of Mason's life are soon related. After his career at college, he entered into orders, and was appointed one of the royal chaplains. He held the living of Ashton, and was precentor of York Cathedral. When politics ran high, he took an active part on the side of the Whigs, but was respected by all parties. He died in 1797.

Mason's poetry cannot be said to be popular, even with poetical readers. His greatest want is simplicity, yet at times his rich diction has a fine effect. In his English Garden, though verbose and languid as a whole, there are some exquisite images. Gray quotes the following lines in one of Mason's odes as 'superlative :'

While through the west, where sinks the crimson day, Meek twilight slowly sails, and waves her banners gray.

Apostrophe to England-From the English Garden?
In thy fair domain,

Yes, my loved Albion! many a glade is found,
The haunt of wood-gods only, where if Art
E'er dared to tread, 'twas with unsandalled foot,
Printless, as if the place were holy ground.
And there are scenes where, though she whilome trod,
Led by the worst of guides, fell Tyranny,
And ruthless Superstition, we now trace
Her footsteps with delight, and pleased revere
What once had roused our hatred. But to Time,
Not her, the praise is due: his gradual touch
Has mouldered into beauty many a tower
Which, when it frowned with all its battlements,
Was only terrible; and many a fane
Monastic, which, when decked with all its spires,
Served but to feed some pampered abbot's pride,
And awe the unlettered vulgar.

Mount Snowdon.-From 'Caractacus.'

Mona on Snowdon calls :
Hear, thou king of mountains, hear;

Hark, she speaks from all her strings:
Hark, her loudest echo rings;
King of mountains, bend thine ear:
Send thy spirits, send them soon,
Now, when midnight and the moon
Meet upon thy front of snow;

See, their gold and ebon rod,

Where the sober sisters nod,
And greet in whispers sage and slow.
Snowdon, mark! 'tis magic's hour,
Now the muttered spell hath power;
Power to rend thy ribs of rock,

And burst thy base with thunder's shock:
But to thee no ruder spell

Shall Mona use, than those that dwell
In music's secret cells, and lie
Steeped in the stream of harmony.
Snowdon has heard the strain:
Hark, amid the wondering grove
Other harpings answer clear,
Other voices meet our ear,
Pinions flutter, shadows move,
Busy murmurs hum around,
Rustling vestments brush the ground;
Round and round, and round they go,
Through the twilight, through the shade,
Mount the oak's majestic head,
And gild the tufted misletoe.
Cease, ye glittering race of light,
Close your wings, and check your flight;

Here, arranged in order due; Spread your robes of saffron hue; For lo! with more than mortal fire, Mighty Mador smites the lyre : Hark, he sweeps the master-strings!

Epitaph on Mrs Mason, in the Cathedral of Bristol. Take, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear : Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave: To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care

Her faded form; she bowed 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;

Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm. Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee;

Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move; And if so fair, from vanity as free;

As firm in friendship, and as fond in love. Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die

('Twas even to thee), yet the dread path once trod, Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,

And bids 'the pure in heart behold their God.'

FRANCIS FAWKES.

FRANCIS FAWKES (1721-1777) translated Anacreon, Sappho, Bion, and other classic poets, and wrote some pleasing original verses. He was a clergyman, and died vicar of Hayes, in Kent. Fawkes enjoyed the friendship of Johnson and Warton; but, however classic in his tastes and studies, he seems to have relished a cup of English ale. The following song is still, and will always be, a favourite :

The Brown Jug.

Dear Tom, this brown jug that now foams with mild ale

In which I will drink to sweet Nan of the vale-
Was once Toby Fillpot, a thirsty old soul,
As e'er drank a bottle, or fathomed a bowl;
In bousing about 'twas his praise to excel,
And among jolly topers he bore off the bell.

It chanced as in dog-days he sat at his ease,
In his flower-woven arbour, as gay as you please,
With a friend and a pipe puffing sorrows away,
And with honest old stingo was soaking his clay,
His breath-doors of life on a sudden were shut,
And he died full as big as a Dorchester butt.

His body when long in the ground it had lain,
And time into clay had resolved it again,
A potter found out in its covert so snug,
And with part of fat Toby he formed this brown jug;
Now sacred to friendship, and mirth, and mild ale,
So here's to my lovely sweet Nan of the vale!

Johnson acknowledged that 'Frank Fawkes had done the Odes of Anacreon very finely.'

JOHN CUNNINGHAM.

JOHN CUNNINGHAM (1729-1773), the son of a wine-cooper in Dublin, was an actor, and performed several years in Digges's company, Edinburgh. In his latter years he sunk into careless, dissipated habits, and resided in Newcastle-onTyne, in the house of a 'generous printer,' whose hospitality for some time supported the poet. Cunningham's pieces are full of pastoral simplicity

and lyrical melody. He aimed at nothing high, and seldom failed.

Song-May-eve, or Kate of Aberdeen.

The silver moon's enamoured beam
Steals softly through the night,
To wanton with the winding stream,
And kiss reflected light.

To beds of state go, balmy sleep-
'Tis where you've seldom been-
May's vigil while the shepherds keep
With Kate of Aberdeen.

Upon the green the virgins wait,
In rosy chaplets gay,
Till morn unbars her golden gate,
And gives the promised May.
Methinks I hear the maids declare
The promised May, when seen,
Not half so fragrant, half so fair,
As Kate of Aberdeen.

Strike up the tabor's boldest notes,
We'll rouse the nodding grove;

The nested birds shall raise their throats,
And hail the maid I love.

And see-the matin lark mistakes,

He quits the tufted green :

Fond bird! 'tis not the morning breaks, 'Tis Kate of Aberdeen.

Now lightsome o'er the level mead,

Where midnight fairies rove,
Like them the jocund dance we'll lead,
Or tune the reed to love:

For see, the rosy May draws nigh;
She claims a virgin queen;

And hark! the happy shepherds cry: "Tis Kate of Aberdeen.'

Content, a Pastoral.

O'er moorlands and mountains, rude, barren, and

bare,

As wildered and wearied I roam,

A gentle young shepherdess sees my despair,
And leads me o'er lawns to her home.

Yellow sheaves from rich Ceres her cottage had

crowned,

Green rushes were strewed on her floor,

Her casement sweet woodbines crept wantonly round, And decked the sod seats at her door.

We sat ourselves down to a cooling repast,
Fresh fruits, and she culled me the best ;
While thrown from my guard by some glances she
cast,

Love slily stole into my breast!

I told my soft wishes; she sweetly replied-
Ye virgins, her voice was divine!
'I've rich ones rejected, and great ones denied,
But take me fond shepherd-I'm thine.'

Her air was so modest, her aspect so meek,
So simple, yet sweet, were her charms!

I kissed the ripe roses that glowed on her cheek,
And locked the loved maid in my arms.
Now jocund together we tend a few sheep,
And if, by yon prattler, the stream,
Reclined on her bosom, I sink into sleep,
Her image still softens my dream.

Together we range o'er the slow-rising hills,
Delighted with pastoral views,

Or rest on the rock whence the streamlet distils,
And point out new themes for my muse.

To pomp or proud titles she ne'er did aspire,
The damsel's of humble descent;
The cottager Peace is well known for her sire,
And shepherds have named her Content.

DR JOHN LANGHORNE.

DR JOHN LANGHORNE (1735-1779) was born at Kirkby Steven, in Westmoreland, and held the curacy and lectureship of St John's, Clerkenwell, in London. He afterwards obtained a prebend's stall in Wells Cathedral, and was much admired as a preacher. Langhorne wrote various prose works, the most successful of which was his Letters of Theodosius and Constantia; and in conjunction with his brother, he published a translation of Plutarch's Lives, which still maintains its ground. His poetical works were chiefly slight effusions, dictated by the passion or impulse of the moment; but he made an abortive attempt to repel the coarse satire of Churchill, and to walk in the magic circle of the drama. His ballad, Owen of Carron, founded on the old Scottish tale of Gil Morrice, is smoothly versified, but in poetical merit is inferior to the original. The only poem of Langhorne's which has a cast of originality is his Country Justice. Here he seems to have anticipated Crabbe in painting the rural life of England in true colours. His picture of the gipsies, and his sketches of venal clerks and rapacious overseers, are genuine likenesses. He has not the raciness or the distinctness of Crabbe, but is equally faithful, and as sincerely a friend to humanity. He pleads warmly for the poor vagrant tribe:

Still mark if vice or nature prompts the deed;
Still mark the strong temptation and the need:
On pressing want, on famine's powerful call,
At least more lenient let thy justice fall.
For him who, lost to every hope of life,
Has long with Fortune held unequal strife,
Known to no human love, no human care,
The friendless, homeless object of despair;
For the poor vagrant feel, while he complains,
Nor from sad freedom send to sadder chains.
Alike if folly or misfortune brought
Those last of woes his evil days have wrought;
Believe with social mercy and with me,
Folly's misfortune in the first degree.

Perhaps on some inhospitable shore
The houseless wretch a widowed parent bore;
Who then, no more by golden prospects led,
Of the poor Indian begged a leafy bed.
Cold on Canadian hills or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent mourned her soldier slain;
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery, baptised in tears.

This allusion to the dead soldier and his widow on the field of battle was made the subject of a print by Bunbury, under which were engraved the pathetic lines of Langhorne. Sir Walter Scott has mentioned, that the only time he saw Burns, the Scottish poet, a copy of this picture was in the room. Burns shed tears over it; and Scott, then a lad of fifteen, told him where the lines were to be found. The passage is beautiful in itself, but this incident will embalm and preserve it for ever.*

* The incident took place in the house of Dr Adam Ferguson. The print seen by Burns is now in the Chambers Institution,

Let age no longer toil with feeble strife,
Worn by long service in the war of life;
Nor leave the head, that time hath whitened, bare
To the rude insults of the searching air;

Nor bid the knee, by labour hardened, bend,
O thou, the poor man's hope, the poor man's friend!
If, when from heaven severer seasons fall,
Fled from the frozen roof and mouldering wall,
Each face the picture of a winter day,
More strong than Teniers' pencil could portray;
If then to thee resort the shivering train,
Of cruel days, and cruel man complain,
Say to thy heart-remembering him who said-
'These people come from far, and have no bread.'
Nor leave thy venal clerk empowered to hear;
The voice of want is sacred to thy ear.
He where no fees his sordid pen invite,
Sports with their tears, too indolent to write ;
Like the fed monkey in the fable, vain
To hear more helpless animals complain.

But chief thy notice shall one monster claim;
A monster furnished with a human frame-
The parish-officer !-though verse disdain
Terms that deform the splendour of the strain,
It stoops to bid thee bend the brow severe
On the sly, pilfering, cruel overseer;
The shuffling farmer, faithful to no trust,
Ruthless as rocks, insatiate as the dust!

When the poor hind, with length of years decayed,
Leans feebly on his once-subduing spade,
Forgot the service of his abler days,

His profitable toil, and honest praise,
Shall this low wretch abridge his scanty bread,
This slave, whose board his former labours spread?
When harvest's burning suns and sickening air
From labour's unbraced hand the grasped hook tear,
Where shall the helpless family be fed,

That vainly languish for a father's bread?
See the pale mother, sunk with grief and care,
To the proud farmer fearfully repair;
Soon to be sent with insolence away,
Referred to vestries, and a distant day!
Referred-to perish! Is my verse severe ?
Unfriendly to the human character?
Ah! to this sigh of sad experience trust:
The truth is rigid, but the tale is just.

If in thy courts this caitiff wretch appear,
Think not that patience were a virtue here.
His low-born pride with honest rage control;
Smite his hard heart, and shake his reptile soul.
But, hapless! oft through fear of future woe,
And certain vengeance of the insulting foe;
Oft, ere to thee the poor prefer their prayer,
The last extremes of penury they bear.

Wouldst thou then raise thy patriot office higher?
To something more than magistrate aspire!
And, left each poorer, pettier chase behind,
Step nobly forth, the friend of humankind!
The game I start courageously pursue !
Adieu to fear! to insolence adieu !
And first we 'll range this mountain's stormy side,
Where the rude winds the shepherd's roof deride,
As meet no more the wintry blast to bear,
And all the wild hostilities of air.

That roof have I remembered many a year;
It once gave refuge to a hunted deer-

by Sir Adam Ferguson, son of the historian, and transferred by Peebles, having been presented to the late Dr Robert Chambers Dr R. Chambers to his brother Dr W. Chambers, for preservation in the Institution. The print is glazed in a black frame. The name of Langhorne,' though in very small characters, is engraved on the print, and this had drawn the attention of Scott (who even at the age of fifteen was a great reader) to the poem in which the lines occur.