But most the Bard is true to inborn right, Lark of the dawn, and Philomel of night, Exults in freedom, can with rapture vouch For the dear blessings of a lowly couch,

A natural meal

hand;

days, months, from Nature's

Time, place, and business, all at his command!
Who bends to happier duties, who more wise
Than the industrious Poet, taught to prize,
Above all grandeur, a pure life uncrossed
By cares in which simplicity is lost?

That life the flowery path which winds by

stealth,

Which Horace needed for his spirit's health;
Sighed for, in heart and genius, overcome
By noise, and strife, and questions wearisome,
And the vain splendours of Imperial Rome?
Let easy mirth his social hours inspire,
And fiction animate his sportive lyre,
Attuned to verse that crowning light Distress
With garlands cheats her into happiness;
Give me the humblest note of those sad strains
Drawn forth by pressure of his gilded chains,
As a chance sunbeam from his memory

Upon the Sabine Farm he loved so well;

fell

Or when the prattle of Bandusia's spring
Haunted his ear he only listening-

He proud to please, above all rivals, fit
To win the palm of gaiety and wit;
He, doubt not, with involuntary dread,
Shrinking from each new favour to be shed,
By the World's Ruler, on his honoured head!

In a deep vision's intellectual scene, Such earnest longings and regrets as keen Depressed the melancholy Cowley, laid Under a fancied yew-tree's luckless shade; A doleful bower for penitential song,

Where Man and Muse complained of mutual

wrong;

While Cam's ideal current glided by,

And antique Towers nodded their foreheads high,
Citadels dear to studious privacy.

But Fortune, who had long been used to sport
With this tried Servant of a thankless Court,
Relenting met his wishes; and to You

The remnant of his days at least was true;
You, whom, though long deserted, he loved best ;
You, Muses, Books, Fields, Liberty, and Rest!

But happier they who, fixing hope and aim
On the humanities of peaceful fame,

Enter betimes with more than martial fire

The generous course, aspire, and still aspire;
Upheld by warnings heeded not too late

Stifle the contradictions of their fate,

And to one purpose cleave, their Being's godlike mate!

Thus, gifted Friend, but with the placid brow That Woman ne'er should forfeit, keep thy vow; With modest scorn reject whate'er would blind The ethereal eyesight, cramp the winged mind! Then, with a blessing granted from above To every act, word, thought, and look of love, Life's book for Thee may lie unclosed, till age Shall with a thankful tear bedrop its latest page.*

* There is now, alas! no possibility of the anticipation, with which the above Epistle concludes, being realised: nor were the verses ever seen by the Individual for whom they were intended. She accompanied her husband, the Rev. Wm. Fletcher, to India, and died of cholera, at the age of thirty-two or thirty-three years, on her way from Shalapore to Bombay, deeply lamented by all who knew her.

Her enthusiasm was ardent, her piety steadfast; and her great talents would have enabled her to be eminently useful in the difficult path of life to which she had been called. The

opinion she entertained of her own performances, given to the world under her maiden name, Jewsbury, was modest and humble, and, indeed, far below their merits; as is often the case with those who are making trial of their powers with a hope to discover what they are best fitted for. viz., quickness in the motions of her mind, author's estimation unequalled.

In one quality, she was in the

EVENING VOLUNTARIES.