This place, so fit for undisturbed repose, The god of sloth for his asylum chose; Upon a couch of down in these abodes, Supine with folded arms, he thoughtless nods; Indulging dreams his godhead lull to ease, With murmurs of soft rills, and whispering trees: The poppy and each numbing plant dispense Their drowsy virtue and dull indolence; No passions interrupt his easy reign, No problems puzzle his lethargic brain : But dark oblivion guards his peaceful bed,

And lazy fogs hang lingering o'er his head.

Colocynthus, a keen apothecary :

Could'st thou propose that we, the friends of fates,
Who fill churchyards, and who unpeople states,
Who baffle nature, and dispose of lives,
Whilst Russel, as we please, or starves or thrives,
Should e'er submit to their despotic will,
Who out of consultation scarce can skill?
The towering Alps shall sooner sink to vales,
And leeches, in our glasses, swell to whales;
Or Norwich trade in instruments of steel,
And Birmingham in stuffs and druggets deal!
Alleys at Wapping furnish us new modes,
And Monmouth Street, Versailles, with riding-hoods;
The sick to the Hundreds in pale throngs repair,
And change the Gravel-pits for Kentish air.
Our properties must on our arms depend;
'Tis next to conquer, bravely to defend.
'Tis to the vulgar death too harsh appears;
The ill we feel is only in our fears.

To die, is landing on some silent shore,
Where billows never break, nor tempests roar:
Ere well we feel the friendly stroke, 'tis o'er.
The wise through thought the insults of death defy;
The fools through blessed insensibility.

'Tis what the guilty fear, the pious crave; Sought by the wretch, and vanquished by the brave. It eases lovers, sets the captive free;

And, though a tyrant, offers liberty.

Garth wrote the epilogue to Addison's tragedy of Cato, which ends with the following pleasing lines :Oh, may once more the happy age appear, When words were artless, and the thoughts sincere; When gold and grandeur were unenvied things, And courts less coveted than groves and springs. Love then shall only mourn when truth complains, And constancy feel transport in his chains; Sighs with success their own soft language tell, And eyes shall utter what the lips conceal : Virtue again to its bright station climb, And beauty fear no enemy but time; The fair shall listen to desert alone, And every Lucia find a Cato's son.

SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE.

SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE was one of the most fortunate physicians, and the most persecuted poets, of this period. He was born of a good family in Wiltshire, and took the degree of M.A. at Oxford in 1676. He was in extensive medical practice, was knighted by King William III., and afterwards made censor of the college of physicians. In 1695, he published Prince Arthur, an epic poem, which he says he wrote amidst the duties of his profession, in coffeehouses, or in passing up and down the streets! Dryden, whom he had attacked for licentiousness, satirised him for writing 'to the rumbling of his chariot-wheels.' Blackmore continued writing, and published a series of epic poems on King Alfred, Queen Elizabeth, the Redeemer, the Creation, &c.

Epicureans and the Fatalists, concluding with a hymn to the Creator of the world. The piety of Blackmore is everywhere apparent in his writings; but the genius of poetry too often evaporates amidst his commonplace illustrations and prosing declamation. One passage of Creation' (addressed to | the disciples of Lucretius) will suffice to show the style of Blackmore, in its more select and improved

manner :

You ask us why the soil the thistle breeds;
Why its spontaneous birth are thorns and weeds;
Why for the harvest it the harrow needs!

The Author might a nobler world have made,
In brighter dress the hills and vales arrayed,
And all its face in flowery scenes displayed:
The glebe untilled might plenteous crops have borne,
And brought forth spicy groves instead of thorn:
Rich fruit and flowers, without the gardener's pains,
Might every hill have crowned, have honoured all the

plains:

This Nature might have boasted, had the Mind
Who formed the spacious universe designed
That man, from labour free, as well as grief,
Should pass in lazy luxury his life.
But he his creature gave a fertile soil,
Fertile, but not without the owner's toil,
That some reward his industry should crown,
And that his food in part might be his own.

But while insulting you arraign the land,
Ask why it wants the plough, or labourer's hand;
Kind to the marble rocks, you ne'er complain
That they, without the sculptor's skill and pain,
No perfect statue yield, no basse relieve,
Or finished column for the palace give.
Yet if from hills unlaboured figures came,
Man might have ease enjoyed, though never fame.

You may the world of more defect upbraid,
That other works by Nature are unmade:
That she did never, at her own expense,
A palace rear, and in magnificence
Out-rival art, to grace the stately rooms;
That she no castle builds, no lofty domes.
Had Nature's hand these various works prepared,
What thoughtful care, what labour had been spared!
But then no realm would one great master show,
No Phidias Greece, and Rome no Angelo.
With equal reason, too, you might demand
Why boats and ships require the artist's hand;
Why generous Nature did not these provide,
To pass the standing lake, or flowing tide?

You say the hills, which high in air arise, Harbour in clouds, and mingle with the skies, That earth's dishonour and encumbering load, Of many spacious regions man defraud; For beasts and birds of prey a desolate abode. But can the objector no convenience find In mountains, hills, and rocks, which gird and bind The mighty frame, that else would be disjoined Do not those heaps the raging tide restrain, And for the dome afford the marble vein? Does not the rivers from the mountains flow, And bring down riches to the vale below?

See how the torrent rolls the golden sand From the high ridges to the flatter land. The lofty lines abound with endless store Of mineral treasure and metallic ore.

AMBROSE PHILIPS.

Among the Whig poets of the day, whom Pope's enmity raised to temporary importance, was AMBROSE PHILIPS (1671-1749). He was a native of Leicestershire, educated at Cambridge, and patronised by the Whig government of George I. He was a commissioner of the collieries, held some appointments in Ireland, and sat for the county of Armagh in the Irish House of Commons. The works of Philips consist of three plays, some miscellaneous poems, translations, and pastorals. The latter were published in the same miscellany with those of Pope, and were injudiciously praised by Tickell as the finest in the English language. Pope resented this unjust depreciation of his own poetry by an ironical

paper in the Guardian, calculated to make Philips appear ridiculous. Ambrose felt the satire keenly.

and even vowed to take personal vengeance on his adversary, by whipping him with a rod in Button's coffeehouse. A paper war ensued, and Pope immortalised Philips as

The bard whom pilfered pastorals renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half-a-crown;
Just writes to make his barrenness appear,

And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a-year. The pastorals are certainly poor enough; but Philips was an elegant versifier, and Goldsmith has eulogised part of his epistle to Lord Dorset, as incomparably fine.'

A fragment of Sappho, translated by Philips, is a poetical gem so brilliant, that Warton thought Addison must have assisted in its composition:

Blessed as the immortal gods is he,
The youth who fondly sits by thee,
And hears and sees thee all the while,
Softly speak and sweetly smile.

'Twas this deprived my soul of rest,
And raised such tumults in my breast;
For while I gazed in transport tossed,
My breath was gone, my voice was lost.

My bosom glowed; the subtle flame
Ran quickly through my vital frame;
O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung;
My ears with hollow murmurs rung.
In dewy damps my limbs were chilled,
My blood with gentle horrors thrilled;
My feeble pulse forgot to play;
I fainted, sunk, and died away.

Epistle to the Earl of Dorset.

COPENHAGEN, March 9, 1709.

From frozen climes, and endless tracts of snow,
From streams which northern winds forbid to flow,
What present shall the Muse to Dorset bring,
Or how, so near the pole, attempt to sing?
The hoary winter here conceals from sight
All pleasing objects which to verse invite.
The hills and dales, and the delightful woods,
The flowery plains, and silver-streaming floods,
By snow disguised, in bright confusion lie,
And with one dazzling waste fatigue the eye.

No gentle-breathing breeze prepares the spring,
No birds within the desert region sing.
The ships, unmoved, the boisterous winds defy,
While rattling chariots o'er the ocean fly.

The vast leviathan wants room to play,
And spout his waters in the face of day.
The starving wolves along the main sea prowl,
And to the moon in icy valleys howl.
O'er many a shining league the level main
Here spreads itself into a glassy plain:
There solid billows of enormous size,
Alps of green ice, in wild disorder rise.

And yet but lately have I seen, even here,
The winter in a lovely dress appear,
Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasured snow,
Or winds begun through hazy skies to blow:
At evening a keen eastern breeze arose,
And the descending rain unsullied froze.
Soon as the silent shades of night withdrew,
The ruddy morn disclosed at once to view
The face of nature in a rich disguise,
And brightened every object to my eyes :
For every shrub, and every blade of grass,
And every pointed thorn, seemed wrought in glass;
In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show,
While through the ice the crimson berries glow.

The thick-sprung reeds, which watery marshes yield,

Seened polished lances in a hostile field.
The stag, in limpid currents, with surprise
Sees crystal branches on his forehead rise:
The spreading oak, the beech, and towering pine
Glazed over, in the freezing ether shine.
The frighted birds the rattling branches shun,
Which wave and glitter in the distant sun.

When, if a sudden gust of wind arise,

The brittle forest into atoms flies;

The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends,
And in a spangled shower the prospect ends:
Or, if a southern gale the region warm,
And by degrees unbind the wintry charm,
The traveller a miry country sees,

And journeys sad beneath the dropping trees :
Like some deluded peasant, Merlin leads
Through fragrant bowers, and through delicious meads,
While here enchanted gardens to him rise,
And airy fabrics there attract his eyes,
His wandering feet the magic paths pursue,
And, while he thinks the fair illusion true.
The trackless scenes disperse in fluid air,
And woods, and wilds, and thorny ways appear :
A tedious road the weary wretch returns,
And, as he goes, the transient vision mourns.

The First Pastoral.

LOBBIN.

If we, O Dorset! quit the city-throng,
To meditate in shades the rural song,
By your command, be present; and, O bring
The Muse along! The Muse to you shall sing
Her influence, Buckhurst, let me there obtain,
And I forgive the famed Sicilian swain.

Begin. In unluxurious times of yore,
When flocks and herds were no inglorious store,
Lobbin, a shepherd boy, one evening fair,
As western winds had cooled the sultry air,
His numbered sheep within the fold now pent,
Thus plained him of his dreary discontent;
Beneath a hoa
a hoary poplar's whispering boughs,

He, solitary, sat, to breathe his vows.
Venting the tender anguish of his heart,
As passion taught, in accents free of art;
And little did he hope, while, night by night,
His sighs were lavished thus on Lucy bright.

'Ah! well-a-day, how long must I endure
This pining pain? Or who shall speed my cure!
Fond love no cure will have, seek no repose,
Delights in grief, nor any measure knows:
And now the moon begins in clouds to rise;
The brightening stars increase within the skies;

The winds are hushed; the dews distil; and sleep
Hath closed the eyelids of my weary sheep:
I only, with the prowling wolf, constrained
All night to wake: with hunger he is pained,
And I with love. His hunger he may tame;
But who can quench, O cruel love! thy flame?
Whilom did I, all as this poplar fair,

Upraise my heedless head, then void of care,
'Mong rustic routs the chief for wanton game;
Nor could they merry make, till Lobbin came.
Who better seen than I in shepherd's arts,
To please the lads, and win the lasses' hearts?
How deftly, to mine oaten reed so sweet,
Wont they upon the green to shift their feet?
And, wearied in the dance, how would they yearn
Some well-devised tale from me to learn?
For many songs and tales of mirth had I,
To chase the loitering sun adown the sky:
But ah! since Lucy coy deep-wrought her spite
Within my heart, unmindful of delight,

How would the crook beseem thy lily hand!
How would my younglings round thee gazing stand!
Ah, witless younglings! gaze not on her eye:
Thence all my sorrow; thence the death I die.
Oh, killing beauty! and oh, sore desire!
Must then my sufferings but with life expire?
Though blossoms every year the trees adorn,
Spring after spring I wither, nipt with scorn:
Nor trow I when this bitter blast will end,
Or if yon stars will e'er my vows befriend.
Sleep, sleep, my flock; for happy ye may take
Sweet nightly rest, though still your master wake.'

Now to the waning moon the nightingale,
In slender warblings, tuned her piteous tale.
The love-sick shepherd, listening, felt relief,
Pleased with so sweet a partner in his grief,
Till, by degrees, her notes and silent night
To slumbers soft his heavy heart invite.

JOHN GAY.

The jolly grooms I fly, and, all alone,
To rocks and woods pour forth my fruitless moan.

Oh! quit thy wonted scorn, relentless fair, Ere, lingering long, I perish through despair.

Had Rosalind been mistress of my mind,

The Italian opera and English pastorals-both sources of fashionable and poetical affectation-were driven out of the field at this time by the easy, indolent, good-humoured JOHN GAY, who seems to have

O think, unwitting maid, while yet is time,

Pope and Swift circle of wits and poets. Gay was

How flying years impair thy youthful prime!

Thy virgin bloom will not for ever stay,

And flowers, though left ungathered, will decay:

The flowers, anew, returning seasons bring!

1

appear:

But beauty faded has no second spring. My words are wind! She, deaf to all my cries, Takes pleasure in the mischief of her eyes. Like frisking heifer, loose in flowery meads, She gads where'er her roving fancy leads; Yet still from me. Ah me! the tiresome chase! Shy as the fawn, she flies my fond embrace. She flies, indeed, but ever leaves behind, Fly where she will, her likeness in my mind. No cruel purpose in my speed I bear; 'Tis only love; and love why should'st thou fear? What idle fears a maiden breast alarm! Stay, simple girl; a lover cannot harm; Two sportive kidlings, both fair-flecked, I rear, Whose shooting horns like tender buds A lambkin too, of spotless fleece, I breed, And teach the fondling from my hand to feed : Nor will I cease betimes to cull the fields Of every dewy sweet the morning yields: From early spring to autumn late shalt thou Receive gay girlonds, blooming o'er thy brow: And when-but why these unavailing pains? The gifts alike, and giver, she disdains; And now, left heiress of the glen, she'll deem Me, landless lad, unworthy her esteem; Yet was she born, like me, of shepherd-sire, And I may fields and lowing herds acquire. O! would my gifts but win her wanton heart, Or could I half the warmth I feel impart, How would I wander, every day, to find The choice of wildings, blushing through the rind! For glossy plums how lightsome climb the tree, How risk the vengeance of the thrifty bee. Or, if thou deign to live a shepherdess, Thou Lobbin's flock, and Lobbin shall possess; And fair my flock, nor yet uncomely I,

If liquid fountains flatter not; and why

Should liquid fountains flatter us, yet show

| The bordering flowers less beauteous than they grow?
O come, my love! nor think the employment mean,
The dams to milk, and little lambkins wean;
To drive afield, by morn, the fattening ewes,
Ere the warm sun drink up the coolly dews;
While with my pipe, and with my voice, I cheer
Each hour, and through the day detain thine ear.

born at Barnstaple, in Devonshire, in 1688. He was of the ancient family of the Le Gays of Oxford and Devonshire; but his father being in reduced circumstances, the poet was put apprentice to a silk-mercer in the Strand, London. He disliked this mercenary employment, and at length obtained his discharge from his master. In 1711, he published his Rural Sports, a descriptive poem, dedicated to Pope, in which we may trace his joy at being emancipated from the drudgery of a shop:

But I, who ne'er was blessed by Fortune's hand,
Nor brightened ploughshares in paternal land;
Long in the noisy town have been immured,
Respired its smoke, and all its cares endured.

the effect of giving rise to the English opera, a species of light comedy enlivened by songs and music, which for a time supplanted the Italian opera, with all its exotic and elaborate graces. Gay tried a sequel to the 'Beggar's Opera,' under the title of Polly; but as it was supposed to contain sarcasms on the court, the lord chamberlain prohibited its representation. The poet had recourse to publication; and such was the zeal of his friends, and the effect of party spirit, that while the 'Beggar's Opera' realised for him only about £400, 'Polly' produced a profit of £1100 or £1200. The Duchess of Marlborough gave £100 as her subscription for a copy. Gay had now amassed £3000 by his writings, which he resolved to keep entire and sacred.' He was at the same time received into the house of his kind patrons the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, with whom he spent the remainder of his life. His only literary occupation was composing additional fables, and corresponding occasionally with Pope and Swift. A sudden attack of inflammatory fever hurried him out of life in three days. He died on the 4th of December 1732. Pope's letter to Swift announcing the event was indorsed by the latter: On my dear friend Mr Gay's death. Received, December 15th, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune.' The friendship of these eminent men seems to have been sincere and tender; and nothing in the life of Swift is more touching or honourable to his memory, than those passages in his letters where the recollection of Gay melted his haughty stoicism, and awakened his deep though unavailing sorrow. Pope, always more affectionate, was equally grieved by the loss of him whom he has characterised as

Of manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit a man, simplicity a child.

Gay was buried in Westminster abbey, where a handsome monument was erected to his memory by the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry. The works of this easy and loveable son of the muses have lost much of their popularity. He has the licentiousness, without the elegance, of Prior. His fables are still, however, the best we possess; and if they have not the nationality or rich humour and archness of La Fontaine's, the subjects of them are light and pleasing, and the versification always smooth and correct. The Hare with Many Friends is doubtless

drawn from Gay's own experience. In the Court of Death, he aims at a higher order of poetry, and marshals his diseases dire' with a strong and gloomy power. His song of Black-Eyed Susan, and the ballad beginning 'Twas when the seas were roaring,' are full of characteristic tenderness and lyrical melody. The latter is said by Cowper to have been the joint production of Arbuthnot, Swift, and Gay.

[The Country Ballad Singer.]

[From The Shepherd's Week.]

Sublimer strains, O rustic muse! prepare;
Forget awhile the barn and dairy's care;
Thy homely voice to loftier numbers raise,
The drunkard's flights require sonorous lays;
With Bowzybeus' songs exalt thy verse,
While rocks and woods the various notes rehearse.

'Twas in the season when the reapers' toil
Of the ripe harvest 'gan to rid the soil;
Wide through the field was seen a goodly rout,
Clean damsels bound the gathered sheaves about;
The lads with sharpened hook and sweating brow
Cut down the labours of the winter plough.
When fast asleep they Bowzybeus spied,
His hat and oaken staff lay close beside;

* *

That Bowzybeus who could sweetly sing,
Or with the rosined bow torment the string;
That Bowzybeus who, with fingers' speed,
Could call soft warblings from the breathing reed;
That Bowzybeus who, with jocund tongue,
Ballads, and roundelays, and catches sung:
They loudly laugh to see the damsel's fright,
And in disport surround the drunken wight.

Ah, Bowzybee, why didst thou stay so long?
The mugs were large, the drink was wondrous strong!
Thou should'st have left the fair before 'twas night,
But thou sat'st toping till the morning light.

Cicely, brisk maid, steps forth before the rout, And kissed with smacking lip the snoring lout (For custom says, 'Whoe'er this venture proves, For such a kiss demands a pair of gloves'). By her example Dorcas bolder grows, And plays a tickling straw within his nose. He rubs his nostril, and in wonted joke The sneering strains with stammering speech bespoke: To you, my lads, I'll sing my carols o'er; As for the maids, I've something else in store.

No sooner 'gan he raise his tuneful song, But lads and lasses round about him throng. Not ballad singer placed above the crowd Sings with a note so shrilling sweet and loud; Nor parish-clerk, who calls the psalm so clear, Like Bowzybeus soothes the attentive ear.

Of nature's laws his carols first begun, Why the grave owl can never face the sun. For owls, as swains observe, detest the light, And only sing and seek their prey by night. How turnips hide their swelling heads below, And how the closing coleworts upwards grow; How Will-a-wisp misleads night-faring clowns O'er hills, and sinking bogs, and pathless downs. Of stars he told that shoot with shining trail, And of the glow-worm's light that gilds his tail. He sung where woodcocks in the summer feed, And in what climates they renew their breed (Some think to northern coasts their flight they tend, Or to the moon in midnight hours ascend); Where swallows in the winter's scason keep, And how the drowsy bat and dormouse sleep; How nature does the puppy's eyelid close, Till the bright sun has nine times set and rose

(For huntsmen by their long experience find, That puppies still nine rolling suns are blind).

Now he goes on, and sings of fairs and shows,
For still new fairs before his eyes arose.

How pedlers' stalls with glittering toys are laid,
The various fairings of the country maid.
Long silken laces hang upon the twine,
And rows of pins and amber bracelets shine;
How the tight lass knives, combs, and scissors spies,
And looks on thimbles with desiring eyes.
Of lotteries next with tuneful note he told,
Where silver spoons are won, and rings of gold.
The lads and lasses trudge the street along,
And all the fair is crowded in his song.

The mountebank now treads the stage, and sells
His pills, his balsams, and his ague-spells;
Now o'er and o'er the nimble tumbler springs,
And on the rope the venturous maiden swings;
Jack Pudding, in his party-coloured jacket,
Tosses the glove, and jokes at every packet.
Of raree-shows he sung, and Punch's feats,
Of pockets picked in crowds, and various cheats.

Then sad he sung 'The Children in the Wood,'
(Ah, barbarous uncle, stained with infant blood!)
How blackberries they plucked in deserts wild,
And fearless at the glittering faulchion smiled;
Their little corpse the robin-redbreasts found,
And strewed with pious bill the leaves around.
(Ah, gentle birds! if this verse lasts so long,
Your names shall live for ever in my song.)