Each lonely scene shall thee restore;
For thee the tear be duly shed;
Belov'd, till life can charm no more,
And mourn'd till Pity's self be dead.

JOHN NEWTON.

BORN 1725-DIED 1807.

THE Rev. John Newton, curate of Olney, and afterwards of St Mary Woolnoth, London, is better known in the religious world than among the readers of poetry, though some of his hymns are rather above mediocrity. The early history of this worthy divine is not a little singular. From being a youth of very irregular life, and afterwards the master of a slave-ship at the worst period of that felonious traffic, Newton became a sincere Christian, a zealous student, and finally an exemplary minister of the gospel. His life is written by himself with exactly that degree of egotism and self-complacence which proves so agreeable in the relation of a good old man's personal story. Newton's religious writings are numerous and popular; but he, perhaps, owes as much of his reputation to the zeal and warmth of his feelings as to either natural capacity or great extent of learning. While curate of Olney, he became the friend of Cowper; and in his volume, entitled the Olney Hymns, first appeared those hymns of Cowper, which, take them all in all, are the purest productions of the Christian lyrist that our language possesses.

THE LORD'S DAY.

How welcome to the saints, when press'd
With six days' noise, and care, and toil,
Is the returning day of rest,

Which hides them from the world awhile!

Now from the throng withdrawn away,
They seem to breathe a different air;
Compos'd and soften'd by the day,
All things another aspect wear.

How happy if their lot is cast
Where statedly the gospel sounds!
The word is honey to their taste,
Renews their strength, and heals their wounds.

Though pinch'd with poverty at home,
With sharp afflictions daily fed,

It makes amends, if they can come
To God's own house for heavenly bread!

With joy they hasten to the place
Where they their Saviour oft have met;
And while they feast upon his grace,
Their burdens and their griefs forget.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

BORN 1728-DIED 1774.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH was born at Smith Hill, in the county of Roscommon, in Ireland. He studied medicine in Edinburgh; and, after some years of a precarious life, part of

which was spent on the continent, settled in London, where he died.

CHARACTER OF A VILLAGE PREACHER.

NEAR Yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd, And, still, where many a garden-flower grows wild;

There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village-preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,

And passing rich-with forty pounds a-year.
Remote from towns, he ran his godly race;
Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wish'd to change his
place.

Unpractis'd he, to fawn or seek for power,
By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour :
Far other aims his heart had learnt to prize,
More skill'd to raise the wretched than to rise.

His house was known to all the vagrant train;
He chid their wanderings, but reliev'd their pain.
The long-remember'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd:
The broken soldier, kindly bid to stay,
Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds or tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were

won.

Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learn'd to

glow,

Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

Thus, to relieve the wretched was his pride; And even his failings lean'd to virtue's side; " But, in his duty prompt at every call,

He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all;
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay,
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way.

Beside the bed where 'parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay'd,
The reverend champion stood. At his control,
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul:
Comfort came down, the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last faltering accents whisper'd praise.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorn'd the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray.
The service pass'd, around the pious man,
With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran;
Even children follow'd with endearing wile,
And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's
smile.

His ready smile a parent's warmth express'd,
Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd:
To them, his heart, his love, his griefs were given;
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.

WILLIAM COWPER.

BORN 1731-DIED 1800.

THE subject of this notice was the son of the rector of Berkhamstead, in Hertfordshire. He was descended of a good family; and all his connexions were respectable both for station and worth. The original misfortune of Cowper was the death of his mother, whom he lost when he was about six years old. Her recollected tenderness lived in his heart while any human affection lingered there. At a very tender age he was placed at a public school, where his life was made so utterly wretched, that here, in all probability, were sown the seeds of that nervous malady under which in after life he suffered so deeply. At ten years of age Cowper was sent to Westminster school, and at eighteen he was placed with a solicitor, to whom, on his own confession, he made a very idle apprentice.

A new light has been thrown over the early history of Cowper by a recent publication, called his Early Poems, with Anecdotes of his Life. The poems add little to his fame; but both the love-verses and the preface to them afford a clew to some of the mysteries hinted at by his biographer, Mr Hayley. Cowper, in his own candid statement made thirty years afterwards, says, "It is true, I was three years with a solicitor,-that is, I slept three years in his house; but my days, as you (Lady Hesketh) very well know, were as regularly spent in Southhampton Row. There was I and the future Lord Chancellor,* giggling and making giggle." This house was the abode of his uncle, Ashley Cowper, to one of whose daughters the young law-student, according to the editor of the Early Poems, formed a strong attachment. The affection

*Thurlow.