The influences of a year,

So smiles upon us the first morn,
And speaks us good as soon as born?
Plague on 't! the last was ill enough,
This cannot but make better proof;
Or, at the worst, as we brushed through
The last, why so we may this too;
And then the next in reason should
Be super-excellently good:
For the worst ills, we daily see,
Have no more perpetuity

Than the best fortunes that do fall;
Which also brings us wherewithal
Longer their being to support,

Than those do of the other sort:
And who has one good year in three,
And yet repines at destiny,
Appears ungrateful in the case,
And merits not the good he has.
Then let us welcome the new guest
With lusty brimmers of the best:
Mirth always should good-fortune meet,
And renders e'en disaster sweet;
And though the princess turn her back,
Let us but line ourselves with sack,
We better shall by far hold out
Till the next year she face about,

Invitation to Izaak Walton.

In his eighty-third year, Walton professed a resolution to begin a pilgrimage of more than a hundred miles into a country then difficult and hazardous for an aged man to travel in, to visit his friend Cotton, and, doubtless, to enjoy his favourite diversion of angling in the delightful streams of the Dove. To this journey he seems to have been invited by Cotton in the following beautiful stanzas, printed with other of his poems in 1689, and addressed to his dear and most worthy friend, Mr. Izaak Walton.

Which having turned off, I then call to pay,
And packing my nawls, whipt to horse, and away,
A guide I had got who demanded great vails,
For conducting me over the mountains of Wales:
Twenty good shillings, which sure very large is;
Yet that would not serve, but I must bear his charges;
And yet for all that, rode astride on a beast,
The worst that e'er went on three legs. I protest;
It certainly was the most ugly of jades;

His hips and his rump made a right ace of spades;
His sides were two ladders, well spur-galled withal;
His neck was a helve, and his head was a mall;
For his colour, my pains and your trouble I'll spare,
For the creature was wholly denuded of hair;
And, except for two things, as bare as my nail;

A tuft of a mane, and a sprig of a tail;

Now, such as the beast was, even such was the rider,
With a head like a nutmeg, and legs like a spider;

A voice like a cricket, a look like a rat,

The brains of a goose, and the heart of a cat;

Ev'n such was my guide and his beast; let them pass,
The one for a horse, and the other an ass.

The Retirement.—Stanzas Irreguliers, to Mr. Izaak Walton.

Farewell, thou busy world! and may
We never meet again:

Here I can eat, and sleep, and pray,
And do more good in one short day
Than he who his whole age outwears
Upon the most conspicuous theatres,
Where nought but vanity and vice do
reign.

By none offended, and offending none!
To walk,ride, sit, or sleep at one's own ease,
And, pleasing a man's self, none other to
displease.

Oh, my beloved nymph, fair Dove,
Princess of rivers, how I love
Upon thy flowery banks to lie,
And view thy silver stream,

Good God, how sweet are all things here! When gilded by a summer's beam!

How beautiful the fields appear!
How cleanly do we feed and lie!
Lord, what good hours do we keep!
How quietly we sleep!

What peace, what unanimity!

How innocent from the lewd fashion,
Is all our business, all our recreation!

Oh, how happy here's our leisure!
Oh, how innocent our pleasure!
Oh, ye valleys! Oh, ye mountains!
Oh, ye groves and crystal fountains!
How I love, at liberty,

By turns to come and visit ye!

Dear Solitude, the soul's best friend,
That man acquainted with himself dost
make,

And all his Maker's wonders to intend,
With thee I here converse at will,
And would be glad to do so still,

For it is thou alone that keep'st the soul
awake.

How calm and quiet a delight
Is it, alone,

To read, and meditate, and write,

And in it all thy wanton fry,
Playing at liberty;

And with my angle, upon them
The all of treachery

I ever learned, industriously to try!

Such streams Rome's yellow Tiber can-
not shew;

The Iberian Tagus, or Ligurian Po.
The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine,
Are puddle-water all compared with
thine;

And Loire's pure streams yet too pol-
luted are

With thine, much purer, to compare;
The rapid Garronne and the winding
Seine
Are both too mean,
Beloved Dove, with thee
To vie priority;

Nay, Thame and Isis, when conjoined,
submit,

And lay their trophies at thy silver feet.

Oh, my beloved rocks, that rise
To awe the earth and brave the skies,
From some aspiring mountain's crown,

How dearly do I love,"
Giddy with pleasure, to look down,
And from the vales, to view the noble
heights above!

Oh, my beloved caves! from dog-star's
heat,

And all anxieties, my safe retreat;
What safety, privacy, what true delight,
In the artificial night,

Your gloomy entrails make,
Have I taken, do I take!

How oft, when grief has made me fly,
To hide me from society,

E'en of my dearest friends, have I,
In your recesses' friendly shade,
All my sorrows open laid,

And my most secret woes intrusted to your privacy!

Lord, would men let me alone,
What an over-happy one
Should I think myself to be;
Might I in this desert place-
Which most men in discourse disgrace-
Live but undisturbed and free!
Here, in this despised recess,
Would I, maugre winter's cold,
And the summer's worst excess,
Try to live out to sixty full years old;
And, all the while,

Without an envious eye

On any thriving under Fortune's smile,
Contented live, and then contented die.

EARL OF ROSCOMMON.

The reign of Charles II. was a period fraught with evil and danger to all the sober restraints, the decencies, and home-bred virtues of domestic life. Poetry suffered in the general deterioration, and Pope has said, that

WENTWORTH DILLON, EARL OF ROSCOMMON (1634-1685), was the nephew and godson of the celebrated Earl of Strafford. He travelled abroad during the Civil War, and returned at the time of the Restoration, when he was made captain of the band of pensioners, and subsequently Master of the Horse to the Duchess of York. Roscommon, like Denham, was addicted to gambling; but he cultivated his taste for literature, and produced a poetical Essay on Translated Verse,' a translation of Horace's 'Art of Poetry,' and some other minor pieces. He planned, in conjunction with Dryden, a scheme for refining our language and fixing its standard; but, while meditating on this and similar topics connected with literature, the arbitrary measures of James II. caused public alarm and commotion. Roscommon, dreading the result, prepared to retire to Rome, saying, it was best to sit near the chimney when the chamber smoked. An attack of gout prevented the poet's departure. He died, and was buried (January 21, 1684-5) in Westminster Abbey. At the moment in which he expired,' says Johnson,' he uttered, with an energy of voice that expressed the most fervent devotion, two lines of his own version of "Dies Iræ:"

My God, my Father, and my Friend,
Do not forsake me in my end!'

·

The only work of Roscommon's which may be said to elevate him above mediocrity, is his Essay on Translated Verse,' in which he inculcates in didactic poetry the rational principles of translation previously laid down by Cowley and Denham. It was published in 1681; and it is worthy of remark, that Roscommon notices the sixth

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book of Paradise Lost'-published only four years before-for its sublimity. Dryden has heaped on Roscommon the most lavish praise, and Pope has said that every author's merit was his own.' Posterity has not confirmed these judgments. Roscommon stands on the same ground with Denham-elegant and sensible, but cold and unimpassioned. We shall subjoin a few passages from his Essay on Translated Verse':

The Modest Muse.

With how much ease is a young maid betrayed-
How nice the reputation of the maid!
Your early, kind, paternal care appears
By chaste instruction of her tender years.
The first impression in her infant breast
Will be the deepest, and should be the best.
Let not austerity breed servile fear;
No wanton sound offend her virgin ear.
Secure from foolish pride's affected state,
And specious flattery's more pernicious bait;
Habitual innocence adorns her thoughts;
But your neglet must answer for her faults.
Immodest words adn it of no defence,

For want of decency is want of sense.

What moderate fop would rake the park or stews,

Who among troops of faultless nymphs may choose?
Variety of such is to be found;

Take then a subject proper to expound,

But moral, great, and worth a poet's voice;
For men of sense despise a trivial choice:
And such applause it inust expect to meet,
As would some painter busy in a street
To copy bulls and bears, and every sign
That calls the staring sots to nasty wine.
Yet 'tis not all to have a subject good;
It must delight us when 'tis understood.
He that brings fulsome objects to my view-
As many old have done, and many new-
With nauseous images my fancy fills,
And all goes down like oxymel of squills.
Instruct the listening world how Maro sings
Of useful subjects and of lofty things.
These will such true, such bright ideas raise,
As merit gratitude, as well as praise.
But foul descriptions are offensive still,
Either for being like or being ill.

For who without a qualm hath ever looked
On holy garbage, though by Homer cooked?
Whose railing heroes, and whose wounded gods,
Make some suspect he snores as well as nods.
But I offend-Virgil begins to frown,

And Horace looks with indignation down;
My blushing Muse, with conscious fear retires,
And whom they like implicitly admires.

Caution Against False Pride.

On sure foundations let your fabric rise,
And with attractive majesty surprise;
Not by affected meretricious arts,
But strict harmonious symmetry of parts;

Which through the whole insensibly must pass
With vital heat, to animate the mass:

A pure, an active, an auspicious flame,

And bright as heaven, from whence the blessing came.

But few-O few! souls pre-ordained by fate,

The race of gods, have reached that envied height.
No rebel Titans' sacrilegious crime,

By heaping hills on hills, can hither climb:
The grisly ferryman of hell denied

Eneas entrance, till he knew his guide.
How justly then will impious mortals fall,
Whose pride would soar to heaven without a call!
Pride-of all others the most dangerous fault-
Proceeds from want of sense, or want of thought.
The men who labour and digest things most,
Will be much apter to despond than boast;
For if your author be profoundly good,
"Twill cost you dear before he's understood.
How many ages since has Virgil writ!
How few are they who understand him yet!
Approach his altars with religious fear;
No vulgar deity inhabits there.

Heaven shakes not more at Jove's imperial nod
Than poets should before their Mantuan god.
Hail. mighty Maro; may that sacred name
Kindle my breast with thy celestial flame,

Sublime ideas and apt words infuse;

The Muse instruct my voice, and thou inspire the Muse!

An Author must Feel what he Writes.

I pity, from my soul, unhappy men,
Compelled by want to prostitute the pen:
Who must, like lawyers, either starve or plead,
And follow, right or wrong, where guineas lead!
But you, Pompilian, wealthy pampered heirs,
Who to your country owe your swords and cares;
Let no vain hope your easy mind seduce,
For rich ill poets are without excuse;
"Tis very dangerous tampering with the Muse;
The profit 's small, and you have much to lose;
For though true wit adorns your birth or place,
Degenerate lines degrade the attainted race.
No poet any passion can excite,

But what they feel tran port them when they write.

On the Day of Judgment.- Version of the Dies Ira.'

That day of wrath, that dreadful day,

Shall the whole world in ashes lay,
As David and the Sibyls say.

What horror will invade the mind,

Behold the pale offender rise,

And view the Judge with conscious eyes.

Then shall, with universal dread,
The sacred mystic book be read,

When the strict Judge, who would be To try the living and the dead.