have any personal objection to you, but because I am no friend to innovation, and think it hard upon the excluded candidates to be subjected on a sudden to a regulation, which, according to my calculation, gives you two chances to their one, and takes away, as it has proved, even that one. But you are in; so there's an end of it, and I give you joy."

3

Having thus obtained his fellowship, and not without a rigorous examination which only a well grounded education could have undergone, he returned home, to receive the congratulations of his family, and to repose himself after the fatigues of so arduous a contest. His retirement was not of long duration, for we find him again immersed in the duties of his official station, and relieving his mind from its dry and irksome forms, by expatiating in the regions of poetry. He wrote An Elegy on St. Mark's Eve, a particular period of time, when it is believed, by the superstitious, that the apparitions of all those who are to die in the course of the ensuing year, will be seen walking across the churchyard at midnight. But the public had no sympathy with so idle a tale, and the piece, which Dodsley published, passed quietly into that oblivion in which, as the author has not drawn it forth, nor I have ever seen it, it may be permitted to remain.

In his capacity as confidential secretary, he had some opportunities also for bringing his acquire

ments into action. He happened to excite Charles Townsend's notice, by solving some kind of enigma which required a geometrical process, and he rewarded his skill in a manner sufficiently flattering to a young and inexperienced youth. He put into his hands a report of his own drawing up, for he was one of the Lords of Trade, and required Cumberland to give his unbiassed opinion upon its merits. This, from such a man, so preeminently gifted, and so qualified to do well whatever he thought fit to do at all, must have been flattering to the vanity of Cumberland, though, perhaps, the act itself was no more than a piece of courtly politeness, which repays a favour by doing nothing with the graceful importance which belongs to doing much. The youthful secretary performed his task with the modest presumption of one who wishes to prove himself worthy of a trust, and is yet fearful of overstepping the limits of decorum. Some things he pointed out that might be amended, and many more, no doubt, he admired: the objections were politely listened to, and the admiration was repaid by compliments addressed to his just taste and sagacity.

The same distinguished character afforded him another opportunity of displaying his scholastic acquirements. He mentioned the following quotation, which he had met with in an anonymous writer, who maintained highly impious doctrines:

Post mortem nihil est, ipsaq; mors nihil.
H

Where this line was to be found he had forgotten, and he referred to Cumberland, as to a man fresh from the study of the classics and likely to know its author. He recollected it was in one of the tragedies of Seneca, and some time after, looking through his works, he discovered it in the second act of the Troades. He copied it, with the context, and sent it to Townsend, accompanied by a poetical version of the passage. the reader may find pleasure both in the original and the translation, I will here transcribe them.

"Verum est, an timidos fabula decipit
Umbras corporibus vivere conditis?
Cum conjux oculis imposuit manum,
Supremusq; dies solibus obstitit,
Et tristes cineres urna coercuit,
Non prodest animam tradere funeri,
Sed restat miseris vivere longius,
An toti morimur, nullaq; pars manet
Nostri, cum profugo spiritus halitu
Immistus nebulis cessit in aera,

Et nudum tetigit subdita fax latus-?

Quidquid sol oriens, quidquid et occidens
Novit, cæruleis oceanus fretis

Quidquid vel veniens vel fugiens lavat,
Atas pegaseo corripiet gradu.
Quo bissena volant sidera turbine,
Quo cursu properat secula volvere
Astrorum dominus, quo properat modo
Obliquis Hecate currere flexubus,
Hoc omnes petimus fata; nec amplias
Juratos Superis qui tetigit lacus
Usquam est; ut calidus fumus ab ignibus
Vanescit, spatium per breve sordidus,
Ut nubes gravidas, quas modo vidimus,
Arctoi Borea disjicit impetus,

Sic hic, quo regimur, spiritus effluet.

As

Post mortem nihil est, ipsaq; mors nihil;
Velocis spatii meta novissima.

Spem ponant avidi, solliciti metum !
Quæris quo jaceas post obitum toco-?
Quo non nata jacent.

Tempus nos avidum devorat, et chaos:
Mors individua est; noxia corpori,

Nec parcens animæ. Tænara, et aspero
Regnum sub domino, limen et obsidens
Custos non facili Cerberus ostio,
Rumores vacui, verbaq; inania,

Et par sollicito fabula somnio.

"Chorus of Trojan Women.

"Is it a truth, or fiction all,
Which only cowards trust,
Shall the soul live beyond the grave,
Or mingle with our dust?

When the last gleam of parting day

Our struggling sight hath blest,

And in the pale array of death

Our clay-cold limbs are drest.

Did the kind friend, who clos'd our eyes, Speak peace to us in vain?

Is there no peace, and have we died

To live and weep again ?

Or sigh'd we then our souls away,
And was that sigh our last,
Or e'er upon the flaming pile
Our bare remains were cast?

All the sun sees, the ocean laves,
Kingdoms and kings shall fall,

Nature and nature's works shall cease,

And time be lord of all.

Swift as the monarch of the skies

Impels the rolling year,

Swift as the gliding orb of night
Pursues her prone career,

So swift, so sure we all descend
Down life's continual tide,
Till in the void of fate profound
We sink with worlds beside.

As in the flame's resistless glare
Th' envelop'd smoke is lost,
Or as before the driving North
The scatter'd clouds are tost,

So this proud vapour shall expire,
This all-directing soul,

Nothing is after death; you've run
Your race and reach'd the goal.

Dare not to wish, nor dread to meet
A life beyond the grave;

You'll meet no other life than now

The unborn ages have.

Time whelms us in the vast Inane,

A gulph without a shore;

Death gives th' exterminating blow,

We fall to rise no more.

Hell, and its triple-headed guard,

And Lethe's fabled stream,
Are tales that lying gossips tell,

And moon-struck Sybils dream.'"'

It must have occurred to every reader of Cumberland's Memoirs, that he employs, on all occasions, a commodious kind of praise, a sort of familiar