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For the Emerald.

POETRY.

INVOCATION TO SPRING.

Written April 4th, 1807.

Come shed thy influence o'er the land, Each deep-felt woe beguile; Dissolve stern Winter's icy sway,

And bid the meadows smile.
That tyrant Power usurps thy throne ;
His garment robes the plains;
And through the sad, the cheerless day,
Dark melancholy reigns.

O come, with soft enlivening mein,
And chace these glooms away;
Let joy, let cheerfulness, and hope,
Their varied powers display.

Give Nature's votary all those charms,
Thy buds, thy flowers impart;
Give him the sweet, the rural walk,
That soothes the pensive heart :
And as around the verdant fields,
He marks thy beauties fall;
His heart with gratitude expands
To Him, who gives them all.

O then return, enchanting Spring,
Let all thy sweets appear;
Claim thy prerogative, and reign
The Charmer of the year.

THE VILLAGE LASS.

For the Emerald.

SONG.

How vain is the counsel which bids us

beware,

Of allurements displayed by the hands of the fair;

I swore that no gazing my eyes, I'd allow, Yet I feel my heart going, I cannot tell how.

My friend had forewarn'd me to be on my guard, That my feelings were tender & love might go hard, [bow, I answer'd most gratefully, making a That I might fall in love, but I did not know how.

When DELIA I saw, she appeared with such ease,

With wit so engaging,so ready to please;

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granted, and that the money it raises is brought to its destination with much greater loss than any other collected by authority, as it passes through the hands and is commissioned to supply the wants of a numerous class of hungry agents who derive from it their principle support.

But it is a tax paid by the pur

They keep the word of promise to chasers of tickets; (say the advo

the ear,

But break it to the hope......

to say

cates of lotteries) no one takes a
ticket unless he chooses; it is there-
That is
fore perfectly voluntary.
that when the ingenuity of
individuals, who have their fortune
to make by it, has disposed the
money to be received in a pompous
arrangement of prizes, when the ad-
ed in every newspaper with unceas-
vantages of the scheme are display-

THE policy of encouraging lotteries has been disputed by very wise and able politicians. While the evils resulting from them are acknowledged on all hands, and some have pretended that they were balanced by corresponding advantages, and though productive of some mischief were the sources of considera-ing pertinacity, when at every cor

ble benefit.

ner you are informed by great-letter sign-boards that here the poor man, the idle, the dissipated may acquire unbounded and interminable wealth, and when the arts, which are thus practised on the credulity and ignorance of the uninformed part of the public, are known to be sanctioned by a legislative act, it is then we are told that the tax is volWhen every motive is urged to seduce the passions, to in

If we allow in full force the arguments of those, who advocate the system, we shall find causes enough to regret it: we shall find that injury to the manners of the community is to be recompensed by accumulation to the funds of some favoured institution, and that the only effect of a lottery is to open an ac-untary! count current between public morality and wealth.

It is amusing to see the delusion - created by its name. Many who would shrink from imposing or encouraging á tax on the community approve the institution of a lottery, although there is no question that a lottery is a tax to the amount

crease and inflame the natural cupidity of wealth, the instinctive avarice that marks human nature, when the judgment is perverted and the mind assailed by every art that cunning exerts over simplicity, and every sophism with which genius puzzles truth; then indeed there

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From gaming," says an eloquent orator in the British parlia ment. "From gaming, the people should be dissuaded by instruction, withdrawn by example, and deterred by punishment. To game, whether with or without good fortune, should be made ignominious; he that grows rich by it ought to be deemed as a robber, and he that is impover ished as a murderer of himself.... And what is a lottery but a game? The persons, who risque their money in lotteries, are I believe for the most part needy or extravagant; those whom misery makes adventurers, or expense makes greedy. And of these the needy are often ruined by their loss, and the luxurious by their gain. He, whose little trade, industriously

is audacity enough left to support the position that the purchase of the ticket was a voluntary act, that the purchaser was at perfect liberty to buy it or not at his option. Liberty indeed! Very much like that which the juggler gives you to draw any card in the pack, himself holding them in such position that you are sure to draw the card he has chosen. If the injury which frequent lotteries occasioned was confined to the mere purchase of a ticket by men who were deluded into the speculation, if only a few families were deprived of their dinner and a few children kept without schooling, and with ragged cloaths by the extravagance of their parents in buying a ticket, when they ought to have bought them these necessaries of life, there would be no great rea-pursued, would find bread for his son to complain; the evil would bring its own cure, and experience would soon teach the lesson, which wisdom had refused.

But the habit of trusting to fortuit

ous

occurrences for that wealth which labour and industry ought to furnish,changes the mind from these regular and slow pursuits, and generates a love of play, a desire of gambling, a disregard to industry, and produces in a greater or less degree all those vices which result from such a disposition.-Let not those of our readers who move in the higher circles of society, who are surrounded by wealth and intelligence, deny the positions we have stated, because the examples of them are not within their own observation. It is in that grade of society were there is but little information, where hope triumphs over prudence, and cupidity defeats calculation, that the immortality, the relaxation of manners and the meaner vices of mankind result from this lottery system of deceptive gambling.

family, diminishes bis stock to buy a ticket, and waits with impatience for the hour which shall determine his lot; a blank destroys all his hopes, and he sinks at once into ntgligence and idleness. The spendthrift,if he miscarries,is not reclaimed; but if he succeeds, is confirmed in his extravagance, by finding that his wants, however multiplied, may be so easily supplied. It is universally allowed that reward should be given only to merit, and that as far as human power can provide, every man's condition should be regulated by his merit. This is the great end of established government, which lotteries seem purposely contrived to counteract. In a lottery the good and bad, the worthless and the valuable, the stupid and the wise, have all the same chance of profit. That wealth which ought only to be the reward of honest industry, will fall to the lot of the drone, whose whole merit is to pay his stake, and dream of his ticket."

Let it be asked how often the profits of a successful ticket have

The subsequent account was written during his life, and certainly is to be esteemed as a piece of elegant composition: it gives us a knowledge of the man, and is probably a correct if not flattering like ness.]

q

been advantageous to their possessor? Sometimes indeed, it is said that fortune, removing the bandage from her eyes, has directed her favours to the cottage of penurious labour, to the assistance of youth EDWARD THURLOW is said to have and enterprize, or to the relief of derived his descent from the famous secsuffering poverty. It is probable retary of that name to Oliver Cromwell. that this may be the case. But His father was an obscure clergyman, there is something in the sudden possessed of an inconsiderable living at Ashfield, in Suffolk. It is a saying of acquisition of wealth, that unbal-him, upon record, that he could give ances the mind, opens to it scenes his children nothing more than educathat had never been contemplated, tion, and that Ned would fight his way and oftener ruins the prospects so- in the world. This fortunate son, howciety might entertain in the future ever discovered no very early proofs of eminence of a promising member, even in infancy, the assumed manners distinguished genius, but possessed, than gives a new votary to virtue, of the man, and was haughty, presuma new friend to morality, or a new ing, churlish, and overbearing. At the disciple to science. Thhich is usual period, he was admitted of Peteracquired without labour is generally house, Cambridge, where the hopes en tertained of his future progress in life wasted without thought, and wealth were far from being sanguine; his genwhen it comes unexpectedly is apt eral deportment was rude and boisterto be magnified by the eye to a size, ous, little calculated (says one of his which no prodigality could dimin- biographers) to conciliate the respect ish, no extravagance destroy. of the world, and apparently without any wish to obtain it. The early part of his life was marked with many irregulariies, exceeding even the bounds of the most dissipated of the day: his difficul ties were of course, great, and he is remembered to have extricated himself with great address and wonderful confidence. His natural powers were always viewed with respect, to which indeed they were intitled. Devoted to a life of pleasure and dissipation, report imputed to him not only a contempt of literature, [Whoever presides in the highest tribunal but almost a total neglect of it, at least of English jurisprudence fills so large a a degree of indolence in the pursuit, inspace in the public eye as to render a me- consistent with the attainments of even moir of his life desirable and interest- necessary knowledge; but common ing. Perhaps no man ever rose to that fame in this instance added nothing to august situation under circumstances her reputation for veracity; his lordship more singular than the late Chancellor was an admirable classical scholar, and THURLOW, whose early confidence in attained his knowledge by the only means his own talents was so great that one of knowledge is accessible-study and aphis biographers relates, that at school he plication. He differed from others onrepeatedly declared to his friends hely in the mode of acquiring it. He who would one day be Chancellor of England. The Political cast of the times has caused the character of Lord THURLOW to be represented under various lights, and we have, in reading his biography, to make allowance for the prejudices or the partialities of the partizan who

The subject will be pursued next

week.

SELECTED FOR THE EMERALD.

BIOGRAPHICAL

crote it.

SKETCH ΟΙ

LORD THURLOW.

E.

was every where seen the picture of indolence, lolling on the noon-day bench, and corsidered, almost as the fixture of a coffee-house in the day, regularly re. tired to the most intense application at night.

-His learned toil "O'er books consum'd the midnight oil."

From Cambridge he removed to the Inner Temple, where the same apparent indolence of temper and disposition marked his conduct.

Let it be recorded, to their honour, that within this period, two of the greatest characters in this kingdom have risen from the desks of attornies; while. if we believe common report, a third may be literally said to have jumped from the loom to the woolsack.

Edward Thurlow, the son of a man

He attended the bar several years unnoticed and unknown. The first cause in which he is said to have distinguished himself, was that between Luke Robinson and Lord Winchel-ufacturer of the city of Norwich, like sea, which at once gave him reputation and business. He was soon after pitched upon as managing counsel in the great Douglas Cause, in which he discovered ability and aldress. It was always his aim, in practice, to give his oratorical productions more the air of genius than industry, and they often carried the appearance of spontaneous effusion, although the effort of much premeditation and previous labour.

His arrival at professional honours was first announced in 1762, when he was appointed king's counsel, thus emerging at once from legal obscurity, his abilities being so little known as a barrister, that the appointment excited | universal astonishment. Impelled by the most restless ardour, he rushed intrepidly, and almost immediately, to the summit of legal fame; for in the year 1770, we find him advanced, under the patronage of the house of Bedford, to the post of Solicitor General, on the resignation of Mr. Dunning; and succeeding Sir William de Grey as Attorney General in 1771.

He was twice elected into parliament for the borough of Stafford.

his great predecessors Somers and Hardwicke, bursting from obscurity by the strength of his own genius, like them too overcame the obstacles of birth and fortune, and suddenly rose to the first honours of his profession. The finger of the House of Bedford pointed the road to preferment; and at a time when his cotemporaries were struggling with mediocrity, and a stuff gown, the silken robes of king's counsel, and the patronage of that illustrious family, inspired him with no common ambition. The pose of his mind expanding with his hopes, the high offices of Solicitor and Attorney-general, which bound the views of some men, seemed to him but as legal apprenticeships, imposed by custom, before he could attain to that dignity, which was to give him precedence of every lay-subject in the kingdom, not of the blood royal,

The people beheld with pleasure a man suddenly emerging from among themselves, and enjoying the highest offices of the state; his triumph seemed to be their own. It flattered their passion to see plebeian merit coping with aristocratical pride and united, In times less favourable to genius but acknowledged worth, conferring, and freedom, the haughty barons and by its participation, lustre on degenerstill more haughty bishops, administer- ate nobility. When they saw him, too, ed justice to their trembling vassals. supporting his newly acquired honours Nobility and priesthood were the only with a dignity which they imagined had criterions of merit, and high birth and only appertained to hereditary grandthe ecclesiastical tonsure seem to have eur, and beheld him in his contest with assumed a prescriptive right over the the head of the house of Grafton, statnoble science of jurisprudence.In this ing his own merits in competition with more liberal age, hereditary pretensions ducal honours, and weighing the fair are forced to give way to personal claims of genius and learning, in opworth, while the fortuitous advantages posing the meretricious, though royal arising from fortune and descent, main-descent, every good citizen partook of tain but a feeble competition with the his honest pride, and participated in his "noble endowments of the mind. This victory. position is no where better illustrated han in the profession of the law, as several of its members, unsupported by any other claim than those of their own merit and abilities, have, during the present century, ennobled themselves and their posterity.

Seated on the Chancery bench, the eyes of mankind were fixed upon him The iron days of equity were thought to be passed; and it was fondly expect ed, that the epoch of his advancement would be the commencement of a golden age. The nation felt that they had

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