ne mes from the actual to the imaginative, but he never passes the bounds of probability. What he depicts-even the strong man in his agony, &c.-he might have seen. Above all, the Poet's kindly, generous, and benevolent nature, peers out even in his gloomiest or most harrowing descriptions;-a d he at all times bears in mind that the office of a christian clergyman involves a high and imperative duty. He therefore never loses an opportunity of impressing upon the minds of his readers the solemn lessons it is his business to teach and inculcate. Even in those passages which call upon satire to cooperate with truth-and which sometimes verge too closely upon the ludicrous-his one great object is clearly paramount-to "warn and scare" from the path which alone leads to a grave that must be terrible. His more awful descriptions are, however, at times, relieved by those that are gentle as well as beautiful-the Apostrophe to Friendship, "the tie more stubborn far than nature's band," may be quoted as one of the most delicious in the language. The Grave is a volume of "pictures to the ear." The representations of the Poet are as vivid as if they were conveyed to us on canvass.-Indeed the illustrations of the pencil can scarcely be

INVIDIOUS grave! how dost thou rend in sunder
Whom love has knit, and sympathy made one!
A tie more stubborn far than nature's band.
Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul;
Sweetner of life, and solder of society,

I owe thee much. Thou has deserv'd from me,
Far, far beyond what I can ever pay.
Oft have I prov'd the labours of thy love,
And the warm efforts of thy gentle heart,
Anxious to please. Oh! when my friend and I
In some thick wood have wander'd heedless on,
Hid from the vulgar eye, and sat us down

Where the pure limpid stream has slid along

In grateful errors through the under-wood,

Sweet murmuring: methought the shrill-tongued thrush
Mended his song of love; the sooty black-bird
Mellow'd his pipe, and soften'd every note:
The eglantine smell'd sweeter, and the rose
Assum'd a dye more deep; whilst ev'ry flower
Vied with its fellow plant in luxury

Of dress. Oh! then, the longest summer's day
Seem'd too, too much in haste! still the full heart
Had not imparted half; 'twas happiness

Too exquisite to last. Of joys departed,

Not to return, how painful the remembrance!

Dull grave-thou spoil'st the dance of youthful blood, Strik'st out the dimple from the cheek of mirth, And ev'ry smirking feature from the face;

Branding our laughter with the name of madness.

Strength too-thou surly, and less gentle boast
Of those that loud laugh at the village ring;
A fit of common sickness pulls thee down
With greater ease, than e'er thou didst the stripling
That rashly dar'd thee to th' unequal fight.

What groan was that I heard ?—deep groan indeed!
With anguish heavy laden; let me trace it:
From yonder bed it comes, where the strong man,
By stronger arm belabour'd, gasps for breath
Like a hard-hunted beast. How his heart
Beats thick! his roomy chest by far too scant
To give the lungs full play. What now avail

The strong-built sinewy limbs, and well-spread shoulders?
See how he tugs for life, and lays about him,

Mad with his pain! Eager he catches hold
Of what comes next to hand, and grasps it hard,
Just like a creature drowning; hideous sight!

Oh! how his eyes stand out, and stare full ghastly!
While the distemper's rank and deadly venom
Shoots like a burning arrow cross his bowels,

And drinks his marrow up-Heard you that groan
It was his last. See how the great Goliah,
Just like a child that brawl'd itself to rest,
Lies still.

*

?

Of the good man is peace!

Sure the last end

How calm his exit !

Night-dews fall not more gentle to the ground,
Nor weary worn-out winds expire so soft.
Behold him in the evening-tide of life,
A life well-spent, whose early care it was
His riper years should not upbraid his green :
By unperceiv'd degrees he wears away;
Yet, like the sun, seems larger at his setting.
High in his faith and hopes, look how he reaches
After the prize in view! and, like a bird
That's hamper'd, struggles hard to get away:
Whilst the glad gates of sight are wide expanded
To let new glories in, the first fair fruits
Of the fast-coming harvest. Then, oh then!
Each earth-born joy grows vile, or disappears,
Shrunk to a thing of nought. Oh! how he longs
To have his passport sign'd, and be dismiss'd!
'Tis done! and now he's happy! The glad soul
Has not a wish uncrown'd. Ev'n the lag flesh
Rests too in hope of meeting once again
Its better half, never to sunder more.

Nor shall it hope in vain :-The time draws on
When not a single spot of burial earth,
Whether on land, or in the spacious sea,
But must give back its long-committed dust
Inviolate and faithfully shall these

:

Make up the full account; not the least atom
Embezzl'd, or mislaid, of the whole tale.
Each soul shall have a body ready furnish'd;
And each shall have his own.

Ask not, how this can be?

Hence, ye profane! Sure the same pow'r

That rear'd the piece at first, and took it down,
Can re-assemble the loose scatter'd parts,
And put them.as they were.

Thus, at the shut of ev'n, the weary bird Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake Cow'rs down, and dozes till the dawn of day,

Then claps his well-fledg'd wings, and bears away.

JAMES THOMSON was born in the year 1700, at Ednam-a parish of which his father was minister-near Kelso, in the shire of Roxburgh. At a very early age he began to write poetry; and it is said produced many pieces which, after having amused with them his friends and schoolfellows, he had the prudence and the courage to destroy. At the University of Edinburgh, where he received his education, a reproof on the part of the divinity professor, for having written his exercise in a style so "poetically splendid" as to be unintelligible to a popular audience, produced disgust towards a scholastic life, and led him to seek patronage and fame in the English metropolis. In 1725 he arrived in London, and at once found in Mallet, the companion of his boyhood, an able and eager friend-their intimacy endured while they lived, "undisturbed by any casual mistake, envy, or jealousy." By his advice "Winter" was finished, sold for a small sum, and published; but it was neither understood nor appreciated until some time after its appearance. By degrees, however, it gained upon the public; "being of a new kind," says Dr. Johnson, "few would venture at first to like it;" but no sooner did it meet the eye and obtain the approbation of some persons of taste and judgment, who "ran about from place to place celebrating its excellence," than its merits were universally acknowledged, and one edition was speedily succeeded by another. "Summer" was issued in 1727; "Spring" in 1728, and " Autumn" in 1730; meanwhile, however, the tragedy of Sophonisba had been acted, and the poems "Britannia," and "on the Death of Sir Isaac Newton," had appeared. Soon afterwards he was selected by the Lord Chancellor Talbot as travelling tutor to his son, in company with whom he visited most of the European courts. On his return to England he was appointed to a sinecure office in the Court of Chancery, and lived in "ease and plenty," until the death of his patron placed his affairs again "in a poetical posture." The influence of Lord Lyttleton soon obtained for him, however, a more profitable appointment; and his latter days were spent at Richmond, in affluent and elegant retirement. In 1746, he published "the Castle of Indolence"-the most highly finished of all his compositions, and which was "many years under his hand." He died of fever, in 1748, and was buried at Richmond; but a monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

Thomson was of stature above the middle size; "more fat than bard beseems;" of a dull countenance, a gross, unanimated and uninviting appearance; silent in mingled company, but cheerful among his friends, by whom he was "very tenderly and warmly beloved." He was naturally sluggish and inactive; the reader of the Castle of Indolence will not fail to recognise the picture he has given of his own character, habits, and feelings. It is however certain that he was "void of envy, guile, and lust of gain;" and that he left for posterity,

"No line which dying he could wish to blot."

Thomson earned and merited a place among the best and highest of the British poets. "The Seasons" will continue popular as long as the English language shall endure. “He is," says Dr. Johnson, "entitled to one praise of the highest kindhis mode of thinking and of expressing his thoughts is original. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of his own growth, without transcription, without imitation, He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius. He looks round on nature and on life with the eye which nature bestows only on a poet; the eye that distinguishes in every thing presented to its view whatever there is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast, and attends to the minute." Place it in any light, and the poem appears faultless-the episodes are delicious stories-the descriptions so accurate as to bear the closest test-the versification richly harmonious, yet always in perfect keeping with the subject—and, above all, the sentiments are so pure, the lessons in virtue so attractive, the "religion" so natural, graceful, and winning, so opposed to bigotry and superstition, that the reader cannot fail to become better and wiser by the perusal of that which produces sensations of the most supreme pleasure. It was his perpetual study