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dicrous portrait of the giver of the banquet in Smollett's "Feast of the Ancients ;" but this piece of lively though exaggerated ridicule can fix no stigma on any man's character.

The choice of subject in Akenside's principal poem is peculiarly felicitous The Pleasures of the Imagination is the prototype of the long list of "Pains" and "Pleasures" on which subsequent poets have expatiated. In all his writings his images, if redundant, are always appropriate, and often strikingly beautiful and original. We forgive his sounding amplitude and fantastic diffusion, from admiration of their attendant affluence and splendour. Even the elaborate artifice of his diction displays the delicacy and address of a classic taste. His Hymn to the Naiads has much elegance and classic propriety, and, as a specimen of lyric verse, is worthy of the author of his great poem.

Akenside died of a putrid fever. He is characterized by Johnson as one of those who make a sounding love of public liberty the disguise of an acrimonious temper. But from Johnson justice to the memory of an avowed whig is scarcely to be expected.

MENTAL BEAUTY.

FROM THE PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION.

MIND, mind alone, (bear witness, Earth and Heaven!)

The living fountains in itself contains

Of beauteous and sublime: here, hand in hand, Sit paramount the Graces; here enthroned, Celestial Venus, with divinest airs,

Invites the soul to never-fading joy.

Look then abroad through Nature, to the range
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres,
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense;
And speak, O man! does this capacious scene,
With half that kindling majesty, dilate
Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate,
Amid the crowd of patriots; and his arm
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove

When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel,
And bade the father of his country hail!
For lo! the tyrant prostrate on the dust,
And Rome again is free! Is aught so fair
In all the dewy landscapes of the spring,
In the bright eye of Hesper or the Morn,
In Nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair
As virtuous Friendship? as the candid blush
Of him who strives with fortune to be just?
The graceful tear that streams for others' woes ?
Or the mild majesty of private life,

Where Peace with ever-blooming olive crowns
The gate; where Honour's liberal hands effuse
Unenvied treasures, and the snowy wings
Of Innocence and Love protect the scene?

CONCLUSION.

FROM THE SAME.

OH! blest of Heaven, whom not the languid songs

Of Luxury, the syren! not the bribes

Of sordid Wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils

Of pageant Honour, can seduce to leave

Those ever-blooming sweets, which from the store
Of Nature fair Imagination culls

To charm the enliven'd soul! What though not all
Of mortal offspring can attain the heights
Of envied life; though only few possess
Patrician treasures or imperial state;
Yet Nature's care, to all her children just,
With richer treasures and an ampler state,
Endows at large whatever happy man

Will deign to use them.
The rural honours his.

His the city's pomp,
Whate'er adorns

The princely dome, the column and the arch,
The breathing marbles and the sculptured gold,
Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim
His tuneful breast enjoys. For him, the Spring
Distils her dews, and from the silken gem
Its lucid leaves unfolds: for him, the hand
Of Autumn tinges every fertile branch

With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn.
Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings;
And still new beauties meet his lonely walk,
And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze
Flies o'er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes
The setting Sun's effulgence, not a strain
From all the tenants of the warbling shade
Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake
Fresh pleasure, unreproved.

TOBIAS SMOLLETT.

BORN 1721-DIED 1771.

SMOLLETT is chiefly known as a novelist and historian; yet there is a classic beauty and genuine vigour of fancy in several of his poetical pieces which must make the admirers of the ODE TO INDEPENDENCE and the TEARS OF SCOTLAND regret that he has left so little verse. Smollett was descended of a family of some note in Dumbartonshire. He studied medicine at Glasgow, and was for a short time a surgeon in the navy. But most of his busy life was spent as a man of letters, who lived by his writings. After a long course of bad health, Smollett went abroad with his wife, but without receiving much advantage from change of climate. He died at Leghorn in very distressed circumstances, though to him literature had been a very lucrative pursuit.

ODE TO LEVEN WATER.

ON Leven's banks, while free to rove,
And tune the rural pipe to love,

I envied not the happiest swain
That ever trod the Arcadian plain.

Pure stream! in whose transparent wave

My youthful limbs I wont to lave;
No torrents stain thy limpid source;
No rocks impede thy dimpling course,
That sweetly warbles o'er its bed,

With white, round, polish'd pebbles spread;

While, lightly poised, the scaly brood
In myriads cleave thy crystal flood;
The springing trout in speckled pride;
The salmon, monarch of the tide;
The ruthless pike, intent on war;
The silver eel, and mottled par. (a)
Devolving from thy parent lake,
A charming maze thy waters make,
By bowers of birch, and groves of pine,
And edges flower'd with eglantine.
Still on thy banks, so gaily green,
May numerous herds and flocks be seen,
And lasses chanting o'er the pail,
And shepherds piping in the dale,
And ancient Faith that knows no guile,
And Industry imbrown'd with toil,
And hearts resolved, and hands prepared,
The blessings they enjoy to guard.

EXTRACT FROM THE ODE TO INDEPEN

DENCE.

STROPHE.

THY spirit, Independence! let me share ;
Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye,

Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
Deep in the frozen regions of the north,

A goddess violated brought thee forth,

(a) The par is a small fish, not unlike the smelt, which it rivals in delicacy and flavour.

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