11. A West-Indian's Address to his Friend on landing in England. GAIETY OF EXPRESSION: 'The impatience must be slightly imitated. Mr. Stockwell, I am rejoiced to see you. You and I have long conversed at a distance; now we are met, and the pleasure this meeting gives me, amply compensates for the perils I have run through in accomplishing it. Not that I complain of my passage by sea; no, no, courier like, we came posting to your shores on the pinions of the swiftest gales that ever blew. It is upon English ground all my difficulties have arisen; it is the passage from the river side I complain of. Your town is as full of defiles as the island of Corsica, and I believe they are as obstinately defended. So much hurry, bustle, and confusion, on your quays, so many sugar casks, porter butts, and.common councilmen in your streets, that it is more than the labour of a Hercules can effect to make any tolerable way through your town. Though in faith my troubles were all my own fault. Accustomed to a land of slaves, 'and out of patience with the whole tribe of custom-house extortioners, boatmen, tide-waiters, and waterbailiffs, that beset me on all sides worse than a swarm of moschettos, I proceeded a little too with my rattan. roughly, to brush them away The sturdy rogues took this in dudgeon; and, beginning to rebel, the mob chose different sides, and a furious scuffle ensued; in the course of which my person and apparel suffered so much, that I was forced to step in to the first tavern to refit, before I could make my approaches in any decent trim. CUMBERLAND. 12. Sentiments of a Contented Mind. LIVELY EXPRESSION: 2 'A slight expression of Scorn and Pity; The more unmixed expression of Cheerfulness resumed. No glory I covet, no riches I want; Ambition is nothing to me; The one thing I beg of kind Heaven to grant, With passion unruffled, untainted with pride, The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied, The blessings which Providence freely has lent, While sweet meditation and cheerful content In the pleasures the great man's possessions display, Unenvied I'll challenge my part; For every fair object my eyes can survey 1 How vainly, through infinite trouble and strife The many their labours employ ! 2 Since all that is truly delightful in life, Is what all, if they please, may enjoy. 4 Rises into 'Vehemence; deepens into Solemnity; rises again into "Vehemence; deepens into. Solemnity; breaks quickly into an expression of Delight; which relaxes into the Plaintive; rises into 'Vehemence; relaxes into the Plaintive. 5 O thou, that rollest above, whence are thy beams, O Sun, thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty: the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave: -1but thou thyself movest alone. Who can be a companion of thy course?-2 The oaks of the mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in heaven: - but thou art for ever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. 4 When the world is dark with tempests; when thunder rolls and lightning flies; thou-lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. 6 But 8 thou art perhaps, like me, for a season: thy years will have an end: thou shalt sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning."Exult then, O Sun, in the strength of thy youth. Age is dark and unlovely it is like the glimmering light of the moon when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills, the blast of north is on the plain, the traveller shrinks in the midst of his journey. 14. Effusions on imagining a Midnight Scene in a Repository of the Dead. SOLEMN EXPRESSION : Rises into Fear, which increases as the circumstances more impress the imagination. See yonder hallowed fane, the pious work Of names once famed, now dubious or forgot, And buried mid the wreck of things that were. The wind is up: hark! how it howls: methinks Till now I never heard a sound so dreary. Doors creak, and windows clap, and night's foul bird Rooked in the spire, screams loud; the gloomy aisles Black plaistered, and hung round with shreds of scutcheons And tattered coats of arms, send back the sound Laden with heavier airs, from the low vaults, The mansions of the dead. Roused from their slumbers, In grim array the grisly spectres rise, Pass and repass, hushed as the foot of night. Again the screech-owl shrieks: ungracious sound! I'll hear no more; it makes one's blood run chill. R. BLAIR. 1 15. Canute's Reproof. NARRATIVE MANNER: Assumes 1 Affected Pomp of expression; relaxes into Plain Narration; deepens into 3 Earnestness, and Solemnity. 4 Canute, the greatest and most powerful monarch of his time, sovereign of Denmark and Norway as well as of England, could not fail of meeting with adulation from his courtiers; a tribute which is liberally paid even to the meanest and weakest princes. Some of his flatterers breaking out one day in admiration of his grandeur, exclaimed that every thing was possible for him. Upon which the monarch ordered his chair to be set on the sea-shore while the tide was rising; and, as the waters approached,' he commanded them to retire, and to obey the voice of him who was lord of the ocean. He feigned to sit some time in expectation of their submission. But when the sea 3 1 |