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The service past, around the pious man,

With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;
Even children followed with endearing wile,

And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest,

Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school; A man severe he was, and stern to view, I knew him well, and every truant knew; Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning face; Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; Full well the busy whisper circling round, Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned; Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault; The village all declared how much he knew; 'Twas certain he could write and cypher too; Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, And even the story ran-that he could gauge; In arguing too, the parson owned his skill, For even though vanquished, he could argue still; While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around, And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, That one small head could carry all he knew.

But past is all his fame. The very spot Where many a time he triumphed, is forgot. Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high, Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye, Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired, Where grey-beard mirth, and smiling toil retired, Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, And news much older than their ale went round.

Imagination fondly stoops to trace

The parlour splendours of that festive place;
The white-washed wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnished clock that clicked behind the door;
The chest contrived a double debt to pay,

A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day;
The pictures placed for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose;
The hearth, except when winter chilled the day,
With aspen boughs, and flowers and fennel gay;
While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show,
Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row.

Vain transitory splendour! could not all
Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall?
Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart
An hour's importance to the poor man's heart;
Thither no more the peasant shall repair
To sweet oblivion of his daily care;

No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale,
No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail;
No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear,
Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear;
The host himself no longer shall be found,
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

FROM 'RETALIATION.'

Here lies our good Edmund', whose genius was such, We scarcely can praise it, or blame it, too much; Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat, To persuade Tommy Townshend 2 to lend him a vote : Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining; Though equal to all things, for all things unfit, Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit; For a patriot too cool; for a drudge disobedient; And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient. In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed, or in place, sir, To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor.

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Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can, An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man; As an actor, confessed without rival to shine: As a wit, if not first, in the very first line : Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart, The man had his failings, a dupe to his art. Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread, And beplastered with rouge his own natural red. On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting ; 'Twas only that, when he was off, he was acting. With no reason on earth to go out of his way, He turned and he varied full ten times a day: Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick, If they were not his own by finessing and trick: He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back. Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came, And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame; Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease, Who peppered the highest, was surest to please.

1 Edmund Burke.

2 Mr. T. Townshend, M.P. for Whitchurch, afterwards Lord Sydney.

But let us be candid, and speak out our mind,

If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.

Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys1, and Woodfalls so grave,

What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave! How did Grub-street re-echo the shouts that you raised,

While he was be-Rosciused, and you were bepraised!

But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies,

To act as an angel and mix with the skies:

Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill,
Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will,

Old Shakspeare receive him with praise and with love,
And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above.

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Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind,
He has not left a wiser or better behind;

His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand;
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland
Still born to improve us in every part,

His pencil our faces, his manners our heart:

To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering,

When they judged without skill, he was still hard of hearing: When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, He shifted his trumpet 3, and only took snuff.

STANZAS ON WOMAN.

When lovely Woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,

To hide her shame from every eye,

To give repentance to her lover,

And wring his bosom, is—to die.

Hugh Kelly, author of False Delicacy, &c. Died 1777. 2 William Woodfall, printer of the Morning Chronicle. Died 1803. 3 Sir Joshua Reynolds was deaf and used an ear-trumpet.

THOMAS WARTON.

[THOMAS WARTON was born in 1728 at Basingstoke, of which town his father (Thomas Warton, Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1718 to 1728) was vicar. He was educated at first by his father, and in 1743 became a member of Trinity College, Oxford, of which society he became a Fellow in 1751. He was Professor of Poetry from 1757 to 1767, and became Poet-Laureate on the death of Whitehead in 1785. He died in 1790. His poems, published separately from time to time, were collected in 1777, and again, in two vols. 8vo., in 1802.]

Thomas Warton is in his poetry chiefly imitative, as was natural in so laborious a student of our early poetical literature. The edition of his poems which was published by his admirer and his brother's devoted pupil, Richard Mant, offers a curious example of a poet 'killed with kindness'; for the apparatus of parallel passages from Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and others, is enough to ruin any little claim to originality which might have been put forward for him. The Pleasures of Melancholy is a cento of П Penseroso, Comus, and The Faerie Queene; the Ode on the Approach of Summer is a mere echo of L'Allegro. Again, the influence of Gray makes itself far too strongly felt in Warton's elegiac poems and odes. But there are reasons why his genial figure should not be altogether excluded from a representative English anthology. It has often been said that his History of English Poetry, with Percy's Reliques, turned the course of our letters into a fresh channel; but what is more noticeable here is that his own poetry-or much of it, for he is not always free from the taint of pseudo-classicalism-instinctively deals with materials like those on which the older writers had drawn. In reaction against the didactic and critical temper of the earlier half of his century, he is a student of nature; he is even an 'enthusiast,' in Whitehead's sense. He has two passions, well expressed in the

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