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ton, "does not seem to have the least rudiments of the future song; but as the bird grows older and stronger, one may begin to perceive what the nestling is aiming at. Whilst the scholar is thus endeavouring to form his song, when he is once sure of a passage, he commonly raises his tone, which he drops again when he is not equal to what he is attempting; just as a singer raises his voice, when he not only recollects certain parts of a tune with precision, but knows that he can execute them. What the nestling is not thus thoroughly master of, he hurries over, lowering his tone, as if he did not wish to be heard, and could not yet satisfy himself."

In no part of his version is Sylvester so frequently happy, as in the delineation of rural beauty and felicity; on these topics, if a few quaintnesses and ill-timed witticisms be withdrawn, the residue will be often found to possess sterling merit. The most valuable quotations, therefore, in these essays, will necessarily be of this description, and the first that occurs in the volume, worth preserving, on the plan of avoiding all those

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passages, which Mr. Dunster had previously selected, is enriched with many picturesque and genuine touches from Nature.

5. The cunning Painter, that with curious care,
Limning a landscape, various, rich, and rare,
Hath set to work, in all and every part,
Invention, judgment, nature, use, and art;
And hath at length, t' immortalise his name,
With weary pencil perfected the same;
Forgets his pains; and, inly fill'd with glee,
Still on his picture gazeth greedily.

First, in a mead he marks a frisking lamb, Which seems, tho' dumb, to bleat unto the dam, Then he observes a wood, seeming to wave: Then, th' hollow bosom of some hideous cave: Here a highway, and there a narrow path: Here pines, there oaks, torn by tempestuous wratht Here from a craggy rock's steep-hanging boss, Thrumm'd half with ivy, half with crisped moss, A silver brook in broken streams doth gush, And head-long down the horned cliff doth rush; Then winding thence above and under ground, A goodly garden it bemoateth round:

There, on his knee, behind a box-tree shrinking, A skilful Gunner, with his left eye winking, Levels directly at an oak hard by,

Whereon a hundred groaning Culvers cry;

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Down falls the cock, up from the touch-pan flies
A ruddy flash that in a moment dies,

Off goes the gun, and thro' the forest rings
The thundering bullet borne on fiery wings.-
Here, in the shade, a pretty Shepherdess
Brings softly home her bleating happiness:
Still as she goes, she spins; and as she spins,
A man would think some sonnet she begins.
Here runs a river, there springs forth a fountain;
Here vails a valley, there doth rise a mountain,
Here smokes a castle, there a city fumes,
And here a ship upon the Ocean looms.
In brief, so lively, Art hath Nature shap't,
That in his work the Workman's self is rapt,
Unable to look off; for, looking still,

The more he looks, the more he finds his skill.
W.1. D.7.

As it immediately fell beneath the province of the poet to notice the various works of creation, his book, as might naturally be supposed, abounds with numerous delineations, taken from the three kingdoms of Nature. Many of these, especially his zoological sketches, are minute, and would have been truly pleasing, had the author been less credulous, and had the language been better adapted to the subject, more simple and less loaded with concetti. So greatly indeed, do they,

in general, offend all the rules of taste, that they excite, for the most part, ludicrous ideas, and there are very few, whose diction, sentiment, or versification, can do honour, either to the author or translator. One description, however, of considerable merit, I have already given of the Nightingale, and I subjoin two more, as well entitled to preservation, of animals, very contrasted in their size and form, the spider and the war-horse; the former is first noticed in a simile.

7.

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like a Spider, who, confin'd
In her web's centre, shak't with every wind,
Moves in an instant, if the buzzing fly
Stir but a string of her lawn canopy.

Again in the succeeding day,

W. 1. D.6.

Still at the centre she her warp begins,
Then round, at length, her little threads she pins,
And equal distance to their compass leaves.

Then neat and nimbly her new web she weaves,
With her fine shuttle circularly drawn
Through all the circuit of her open lawn;
Open, least else th' ungentle winds should tear
Her cypress tent weaker than any hair;
And that the foolish fly might easier get
Within the meshes of her curious net:

Which he no sooner doth begin to shake,
But straight the male doth to the centre make,
That he may conquer more securely there
The humming creature hamper'd in his snare.
W. 1. D. 7.

These morsels are well written, and unpolluted by the usual faults of Sylvester; the lines in Italics are particularly illustrative of the spider's mode of spinning, and of the fragile nature of her materials and web. Thomson has given us a more terrific view of this patient and industrious insect, and has painted in colours, which make the reader shudder, the savage exultation of the spoiler over his defenceless prey.

chief to heedless flies the window proves A constant death; where, gloomily retir'd, The villain spider lives, cunning and fierce, Mixture abhor'd! Amid a mangled heap Of carcasses, in eager watch he sits, O'erlooking all his waving snares around. Near the dire cell the dreadless wanderer oft Passes, as oft the ruffian shows his front; The prey at last ensnar'd, he dreadful darts, With rapid glide, along the leaning line; And, fixing in the wretch his cruel fangs, Strikes backward grimly pleas'd: the fluttering wing,

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