fortunate author. He visited London, and was the furrows, covered up the seed, and smoothed the admitted to all its brilliant and distinguished ground. Ten days after, he came running to me, and with circles. Goldsmith, Johnson, Garrick, and Rey- astonishment in his countenance, told me that his name nolds were numbered among his friends. On a was growing in the garden. I smiled at the report, and second visit in 1773, he had an interview with the seemed inclined to disregard it; but he insisted on my king and queen, which resulted in a pension of going to see what had happened. "Yes," said I care£200 per annum. lessly, on coming to the place; "I see it is so; but The university of Oxford conthere is nothing in this worth notice; it is mere chance;" ferred upon him the degree of LL.D., and Rey- and I went away. He followed me, and taking hold of nolds painted his portrait in an allegorical picture, my coat, said with some earnestness: "It could not be in which Beattie was seen by the side of an angel mere chance, for that somebody must have contrived pushing down Prejudice, Scepticism, and Folly! matters so as to produce it." I pretend not to give his Need we wonder that poor Goldsmith was envious words or my own, for I have forgotten both, but I give of his brother-poet? To the honour of Beattie, it the substance of what passed between us in such language must be recorded, that he declined entering the as we both understood. "So you think," I said, "that Church of England, in which preferment was what appears so regular as the letters of your name canpromised him. The second part of the Minstrel not be by chance?" "Yes," said he with firmness, "I think so." was published in 1774. Domestic circumstances ." "Look at yourself," I replied, “and consider marred the felicity of Beattie's otherwise happy your hands and fingers, your legs and feet, and other limbs ; and prosperous lot. His wife the daughter of useful to you?" He said they were. are they not regular in their appearance, and "Came you then Dr Dun, Aberdeen-became insane, and was hither," said I, "by chance?" "No," he answered; obliged to be confined in an asylum. He had two "that cannot be; something must have made me.' sons, both amiable and accomplished youths. "And who is that something?" I asked. He said he The eldest lived till he was twenty-two, and was did not know. (I took particular notice that he did not associated with his father in the professorship say, as Rousseau fancies a child in like circumstances he died in 1790, and the afflicted parent soothed would say, that his parents made him.) I had now his grief by writing his life, and publishing some gained the point I aimed at; and saw that his reason specimens of his composition in prose and verse. taught him-though he could not so express it-that The second son died in 1796, aged eighteen; and what begins to be, must have a cause, and that what is the only consolation of the now lonely poet was, I therefore told him the name of the Great Being who formed with regularity, must have an intelligent cause. that he could not have borne to see their 'elegant made him and all the world, concerning whose adorable minds mangled with madness'-an allusion to nature I gave him such information as I thought he the hereditary insanity of their mother. By nature, could in some measure comprehend. The lesson affected Beattie was a man of quick and tender sensi-him deeply, and he never forgot either it or the circumbilities. A fine landscape, or music-in which he stance that introduced it.' was a proficient-affected him even to tears. had a sort of hysterical dread of meeting with his metaphysical opponents, which was an unmanly weakness. Such an organisation, physical and moral, was ill fitted to insure happiness or fortitude in adversity. When his second son died, he said he had done with the world. He ceased to correspond with his friends, or to continue his studies. Shattered by a long train of nervous complaints, in April 1799 the poet had a stroke of palsy, and after different returns of the same malady, which excluded him from all society, he died on the 18th of August 1803. His Life was written by his attached friend, Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, Baronet; it was published in 1805, and ranks high among the biographies of literary personages. He In the early training of his eldest and beloved son, Dr Beattie adopted an expedient of a romantic and interesting description. His object was to give him the first idea of a Supreme Being; and his method, as Dr Porteous, bishop of London, remarked, 'had all the imagination of Rousseau, without his folly and extravagance.' Imparting to a Boy the First Idea of a Supreme Being. 'He had,' says Beattie, 'reached his fifth (or sixth) year, knew the alphabet, and could read a little; but had received no particular information with respect to the author of his being, because I thought he could not yet understand such information, and because I had learned, from my own experience, that to be made to repeat words not understood, is extremely detrimental to the faculties of a young mind. In a corner of a little garden, without informing any person of the circumstance, I wrote in the mould, with my finger, the three initial letters of his name, and sowing garden cresses in The Minstrel, on which Beattie's fame now rests, is a didactic poem, in the Spenserian stanza, designed to trace the progress of a poetical genius, born in a rude age, from the first dawning of fancy and reason till that period at which he may be supposed capable of appearing in the world as a minstrel.' The idea was suggested by Percy's preliminary Dissertation to his Reliques. The character of Edwin, the minstrel-in which Beattie embodied his own early feelings and poetical aspirations-is very finely drawn. Opening of the Minstrel, Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb In life's low vale remote has pined alone, And yet the languor of inglorious days Him, who ne'er listened to the voice of praise, Health, competence, and peace. Nor higher aim The rolls of fame I will not now explore; His waving locks and beard all hoary gray; While from his bending shoulder, decent hung His harp, the sole companion of his way, Which to the whistling wind responsive rung: And ever as he went some merry lay he sung. Fret not thyself, thou glittering child of pride, That a poor villager inspires my strain; With thee let Pageantry and Power abide ; The gentle Muses haunt the sylvan reign; Where through wild groves at eve the lonely swain Enraptured roams, to gaze on Nature's charms. They hate the sensual, and scorn the vain; The parasite their influence never warms, Nor him whose sordid soul the love of gold alarms. Though richest hues the peacock's plumes adorn, Yet horror screams from his discordant throat. Rise, sons of harmony, and hail the morn, While warbling larks on russet pinions float: Or seek at noon the woodland scene remote, Where the gray linnets carol from the hill, O let them ne'er, with artificial note, To please a tyrant, strain the little bill, But sing what Heaven inspires, and wander where they will. Liberal, not lavish, is kind Nature's hand; Canst thou forego the pure ethereal soul, O how canst thou renounce the boundless store All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven?... There lived in Gothic days, as legends tell, But he, I ween, was of the north countrie; 698 The shepherd swain of whom I mention made, On Scotia's mountains fed his little flock; The sickle, scythe, or plough he never swayed; An honest heart was almost all his stock; His drink the living water from the rock: The milky dams supplied his board, and lent Their kindly fleece to baffle winter's shock; And he, though oft with dust and sweat besprent, Did guide and guard their wanderings, wheresoe'er they went. Description of Edwin. And yet poor Edwin was no vulgar boy. And now he laughed aloud, yet none knew why. Some deemed him wondrous wise, and some believed him mad. But why should I his childish feats display? Concourse, and noise, and toil he ever fled; Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous fray Of squabbling imps; but to the forest sped, Or roamed at large the lonely mountain's head, Or where the maze of some bewildered stream To deep untrodden groves his footsteps led, There would he wander wild, till Phoebus' beam, Shot from the western cliff, released the weary team. The exploit of strength, dexterity, or speed, By trap or net, by arrow or by sling; And sure the sylvan reign unbloody joy might yield. Lo! where the stripling, rapt in wonder, roves Beneath the precipice o'erhung with pine; And sees on high, amidst the encircling groves, From cliff to cliff the foaming torrents shine; While waters, woods, and winds in concert join, And echo swells the chorus to the skies. Would Edwin this majestic scene resign For aught the huntsman's puny craft supplies? Ah, no! he better knows great Nature's charms to prize. And oft he traced the uplands to survey, When o'er the sky advanced the kindling dawn, But, lo! the sun appears, and heaven, earth, ocean smile. And oft the craggy cliff he loved to climb, When all in mist the world below was lostWhat dreadful pleasure there to stand sublime, Like shipwrecked mariner on desert coast, And view the enormous waste of vapour, tost In billows, lengthening to the horizon round, Now scooped in gulfs, with mountains now embossed! And hear the voice of mirth and song rebound, Flocks, herds, and waterfalls, along the hoar profound! In truth he was a strange and wayward wight, A sigh, a tear, so sweet, he wished not to control. Morning Landscape. Even now his eyes with smiles of rapture glow, As on he wanders through the scenes of morn, Where the fresh flowers in living lustre blow, Where thousand pearls the dewy lawns adorn, A thousand notes of joy in every breeze are borne. But who the melodies of morn can tell? The wild brook babbling down the mountain side; The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell; The pipe of early shepherd dim descried In the lone valley; echoing far and wide The clamorous horn along the cliffs above; The hollow murmur of the ocean-tide; The hum of bees, the linnet's lay of love, And the full choir that wakes the universal grove. The cottage-curs at early pilgrim bark; Crowned with her pail the tripping milkmaid sings; The whistling ploughman stalks afield; and, hark! Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings; Through rustling corn the hare astonished springs; Slow tolls the village-clock the drowsy hour; The partridge bursts away on whirring wings; Deep mourns the turtle in sequestered bower, And shrill lark carols clear from her aërial tower. Life and Immortality. O wild For now the storm howls mournful through the brake, And the dead foliage flies in many a shapeless flake. Where now the rill, melodious, pure, and cool, And meads, with life, and mirth, and beauty crowned ? Fled each fair form, and mute each melting sound, Yet such the destiny of all on earth: Borne on the swift, though silent wings of Time, Old age comes on apace to ravage all the clime. And be it so. Let those deplore their doom Shall Spring to these sad scenes no more return? Is yonder wave the Sun's eternal bed? Soon shall the orient with new lustre burn, And Spring shall soon her vital influence shed, Again attune the grove, again adorn the mead. Shall I be left forgotten in the dust, Bright through the eternal year of Love's triumphant reign. Retirement. When in the crimson cloud of even 'Ye cliffs, in hoary grandeur piled Where Melancholy strays forlorn, And Woe retires to weep, What time the wan moon's yellow horn Gleams on the western deep: 'To you, ye wastes, whose artless charms Deep in your most sequestered bower Where Solitude, mild, modest power, 'Thy shades, thy silence now be mine, 'Oh, while to thee the woodland pours 'But if some pilgrim through the glade For he of joys divine shall tell, That wean from earthly woe, And triumph o'er the mighty spell That chains his heart below. For me, no more the path invites No more I climb those toilsome heights, "Twas thus, by the glare of false science betrayed, That leads, to bewilder; and dazzles, to blind; My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade, Destruction before me, and sorrow behind. 'And darkness and doubt are now flying away, And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.' 1764 went to London, desirous of literary distinction. Lord Lyttelton noticed and encouraged his poetical efforts, and Mickle was buoyed up with dreams of patronage and celebrity. Two years of increasing destitution dispelled this vision, and the poet was glad to accept the situation of corrector of the Clarendon press at Oxford. Here he published Pollio, an elegy, and the Concubine, a moral poem in the manner of Spenser, which he afterwards reprinted with the title of Syr Martyn. Mickle adopted the obsolete phraseology of Spenser, which was too antiquated even for the age of the Faery Queen, and which Thomson had almost wholly discarded in his Castle of Indolence. The first stanza of this poem has been quoted by Sir Walter Scott-divested of its antique spelling-in illustration of a remark made by him, that Mickle, 'with a vein of great facility, united a power of verbal melody, which might have been envied by bards of much greater renown ;' Awake, ye west winds, through the lonely dale, And Fancy to thy faery bower betake; Even now, with balmy sweetness, breathes the gale, Dimpling with downy wing the stilly lake; Through the pale willows faltering whispers wake, And Evening comes with locks bedropped with dew; On Desmond's mouldering turrets slowly shake The withered rye-grass and the harebell blue, And ever and anon sweet Mulla's plaints renew. Sir Walter adds, that Mickle, 'being a printer by profession, frequently put his lines into types without taking the trouble previously to put them into writing.' This is mentioned by none of the poet's biographers, and is improbable. The office of a corrector of the press is quite separate from the mechanical operations of the printer. Mickle's poem was highly successful-not the less, perhaps, because it was printed anonymously, and was ascribed to different authors-and it went through three editions. In 1771, he published the first canto of his great translation, which was completed in 1776; and being supported by a long list of subscribers, was highly advantageous both to his fame and fortune. In 1779, he went Johnston, and was received with much distinction out to Portugal as secretary to Commodore in Lisbon by the countrymen of Camoens. On the return of the expedition, Mickle was appointed joint-agent for the distribution of the prizes. His own share was considerable; and having received some money by his marriage with a lady whom he had known in his obscure sojourn at Oxford, the latter days of the poet were spent in ease and leisure. He died at Forest Hill, near Oxford, in 1788. The most popular of Mickle's original poems is his ballad of Cumnor Hall which has attained additional celebrity by its having suggested to Sir Walter Scott the groundwork of his romance of Kenilworth. The plot is interesting, and the versification easy and musical. Mickle assisted in Evans's Collection of Old Ballads-in which Cumnor Hall and other pieces of his first appeared; and though in this style of composition he did not copy the direct simplicity and unsophisticated ardour of the real old ballads, he Hall, but was persuaded-wisely, we think-by Mr Constable, his publisher, to adopt the title of Kenilworth. Sir Walter intended to have named his romance Cumnor had much of their tenderness and pathos. A still stronger proof of this is afforded by a Scottish song, The Mariner's Wife, but better known as There's nae Luck about the House, which was claimed by a poor schoolmistress, named Jean Adams, who died in the Town's Hospital, Glasgow, in 1765. It is probable that Jean Adams had written some song with the same burthen ('There's nac luck about the house'), but the popular lyric referred to seems to have been the composition of Mickle. An imperfect, altered, and corrected copy was found among his manuscripts after his death; and his widow being applied to, confirmed the external evidence in his favour, by an express declaration that her husband had said the song was his own, and that he had explained to her the Scottish words. It is the fairest flower in his poetical chaplet. The delineation of humble matrimonial happiness and affection which the song presents, is almost unequalled. Beattie added a stanza to this song, containing a happy Epicurean fancy, elevated by the situation and the faithful love of the speaker-which Burns says is' worthy of the first poet'— The present moment is our ain, Mickle would have excelled in the Scottish dialect, and in portraying Scottish life, had he truly known his own strength, and trusted to the impulses of his heart instead of his ambition. Cumnor Hall. The dews of summer night did fall, And many an oak that grew thereby. Now nought was heard beneath the skiesThe sounds of busy life were still Save an unhappy lady's sighs, That issued from that lonely pile. 'Leicester,' she cried, 'is this thy love 'No more thou com'st, with lover's speed, Thy once beloved bride to see; But be she alive, or be she dead, I fear, stern Earl, 's the same to thec. 'Not so the usage I received When happy in my father's hall; No faithless husband then me grieved, No chilling fears did me appal. "I rose up with the cheerful morn, No lark so blithe, no flower more gay; And, like the bird that haunts the thorn, So merrily sung the livelong day. If that my beauty is but small, Among court-ladies all despised, Why didst thou rend it from that hall, Where, scornful Earl, it well was prized? 'And when you first to me made suit, How fair I was, you oft would say! And, proud of conquest, plucked the fruit, Then left the blossom to decay. 'Yes! now neglected and despised, The rose is pale, the lily's dead; But he that once their charms so prized, Is sure the cause those charms are fled. 'For know, when sickening grief doth prey, And tender love 's repaid with scorn, The sweetest beauty will decay: What floweret can endure the storm? 'At court, I'm told, is beauty's throne, 'Then, Earl, why didst thou leave the beds ''Mong rural beauties I was one; Among the fields wild-flowers are fair; Makes thee forget thy humble spouse. "Then, Leicester, why, again I plead— 'Why didst thou praise my humble charms, And, oh! then leave them to decay? Why didst thou win me to thy arms, 'The village maidens of the plain 'The simple nymphs! they little know 'How far less blest am I than them, 'Nor, cruel Earl! can I enjoy The humble charms of solitude; 'Last night, as sad I chanced to stray, Save Philomel on yonder thorn. 'My spirits flag, my hopes decay; Still that dread death-bell smites my ear; And many a body seems to say: "Countess, prepare-thy end is near.' Thus sore and sad that lady grieved In Cumnor Hall, so lone and drear; And many a heartfelt sigh she heaved, And let fall many a bitter tear. |