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All in dreary hammocks shrouded,
Which for winding sheets they wore,
And with looks by sorrow clouded,
Frowning on that hostile shore.

On them gleam'd the moon's wan lustre,
When the shade of Hosier brave
His pale bands were seen to muster,
Rising from their wat❜ry grave:
O'er the glimmering wave he hied him,
Where the Burford rear'd her sail,
With three thousand ghosts besides him,
And in groans did Vernon hail.

Heed, O heed, our fatal story,
I am Hosier's injur'd ghost,
You, who now have purchas'd glory
At this place where I was lost;
Though in Porto-Bello's ruin

You now triumph free from fears,
When you think on our undoing,
You will mix your joy with tears.

See these mournful spectres sweeping
Ghastly o'er this hated wave,

Whose wan cheeks are stain'd with weeping,
These were English captains brave:
Mark those numbers, pale and horrid,
Those were once my sailors bold,
Lo, each hangs his drooping forehead,
While his dismal tale is told.

I, by twenty sail attended,

Did this Spanish town affright;
Nothing then its wealth defended
But my orders not to fight:
O! that in this rolling ocean

I had cast them with disdain,
And obey'd my heart's warm motion,
To have quell'd the pride of Spain;

For resistance I could fear none,
But with twenty ships had done
What thou, brave and happy Vernon,

Then the Bastimentos never
Had our foul dishonour seen,
Nor the sea the sad receiver

Of this gallant train had been.

Thus like thee, proud Spain dismaying,
And her galleons leading home,
Though condemn'd for disobeying,
I had met a traitor's doom.
To have fallen, my country crying
He has play'd an English part,
Had been better far than dying
Of a griev'd and broken heart.

Unrepining at thy glory,

Thy successful arms we hail; But remember our sad story,

And let Hosier's wrongs prevail.
Sent in this foul clime to languish,
Think what thousands fell in vain,
Wasted with disease and anguish,
Not in glorious battle slain.

Hence with all my train attending
From their oozy tombs below,
Through the hoary foam ascending,
Here I feed my constant woe:
Here the Bastimentos viewing,
We recal our shameful doom,
And our plaintive cries renewing,

Wander through the midnight gloom.

O'er these waves for ever mourning,
Shall we roam depriv'd of rest,

If to Britain's shore returning,

You neglect my just request;
After this proud foe subduing,
When your patriot friends you see,
Think on vengeance for my ruin,
And for England sham'd in me.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE was born in 1714, at the Leasowes, in the parish of HalesOwen, Shropshire; and was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford. Although he had previously published, anonymously, a small collection of poems, it was not until the year 1740 that the world heard of his name. "The Judgment of Hercules" was soon followed by "The School-mistress "-the actual picture, it is said, of an aged dame who taught him his letters; and subsequently, as leisure offered or inclination prompted, for he was not "of necessity a writer," he continued to woo the muse among the groves, within the bowers, and beside the running streams, to which he had given existence upon his "few paternal acres"-his rural farm of the Leasowes. The Poet converted his small domain into a mimic Arcadia; planting his walks in undulating curves; making water to run and murmur where it could be heard, and to stagnate where it could be seen; leaving intervals where the prospect was agreeable, and thickening the trees where some object was to be hidden; placing seats at convenient distances; and statues of sylvan deities, with appropriate inscriptions; with lakes, cascades, rustic bridges, alcoves, slopes, tree-clumps, "easy swells and hollows," hanging woods, dripping fountains, trickling rills, grottoes, niches of rock-work, green areas and arid spots-making it, in short, a scene of wild and cultivated beauty which realized the fictions of old romance. He succeeded in rendering it "the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful-a place to be visited by travellers and copied by designers;" and gave a practical lesson in landscape gardening, of which ample use was afterwards made. The genius of the place influenced the mind of the Poet: and here, amid those gentle and solitary walks, leading a life which the wise and active call indolent, he produced his Pastorals and Elegies; works which, if they may not rank high among the productions of genius, are at least the best and happiest of the class to which they belong.

Unhappily, however, there is a darker side to this pleasant picture. The taste of Shenstone was expensive, and, in a worldly sense, unprofitable. "It brought clamours about him that overpowered the lamb's bleat and the linnet's song." He became involved in pecuniary difficulties; which probably hastened his death. He died in 1763, and was buried in the church-yard of his native village.

The character of the man and the Poet has been drawn by two faithful friendsDodsley and Graves. His person was above the middle stature, largely and rather elegantly formed; his face seemed plain till you conversed with him, and then it grew very pleasing. In his disposition he was easy, generous and indolent; of a melancholy temperament, yet, at times, humorous and sprightly. One of the warmest eulogists of his planted Paradise has likened it to his mind-simple, elegant, and amiable.

As a Poet, his merit has been long established. His productions, if they are deficient in vigour and variety, are full of simplicity, delicacy, and pathos. "The Schoolmistress" is, perhaps, the most popular; but among his Pastorals there are many of exceeding elegance; and although they have been often "mocked at" as simple almost to absurdity, they speak to the heart and the affections, and are dear to both. We have abundant proof that the emotions of Shenstone, as we find them in his verse, were real; besides his own assertion, that he "felt very sensibly the affections he communicates," they bear the stamp of truth; and some passages of his life are the witnesses of it. He wooed and might have won; but prudence-unhappily, for it left him without an object of excitement to industry and exertion-forbade his allying to "poetry and poverty" the woman who had gained his heart. This unfortunate resolve not only left him without a comforter in his time of trouble, a counsellor in his moments of doubt and indecision, a companion in his hours of solitude and thought, a friend in his moments of higher aspirations or deeper despondencies,—it tinged all his feelings with repining melancholy - produced a longing after fame which he lacked the resolution to achieve;-and the beauties he had called into existence out of a barren waste lost more than half their attractions, because he was without the ONE to talk with of their beauty, and by whom to hear their beauty praised. He created a paradise-and beheld from it the prospect of a jail. Dr. Johnson emphatically says of him-" he was a lamp that spent its oil in blazing"-and he adds a melancholy comment-" If he had lived a little longer, he would have been

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In every village mark'd with little spire,
Embower'd in trees, and hardly known to Fame,
There dwells in lowly shed, and mean attire,
A matron old, whom we School-mistress name;
Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame;
They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent,
Aw'd by the power of this relentless dame;
And oft-times, on vagaries idly bent,

For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely shent.

And all in sight doth rise a birchen tree,

Which Learning near her little dome did stowe;

Whilom a twig of small regard to see,

elegantly formed; his face seemed plain till you conversed with him, and then it grew very pleasing. In his disposition he was easy, generous and indolent; of a melancholy temperament, yet, at times, humorous and sprightly. One of the warmest eulogists of his planted Paradise has likened it to his mind-simple, elegant, and amiable.

As a Poet, his merit has been long established. His productions, if they are deficient in vigour and variety, are full of simplicity, delicacy, and pathos. "The Schoolmistress" is, perhaps, the most popular; but among his Pastorals there are many of exceeding elegance; and although they have been often "mocked at" as simple almost to absurdity, they speak to the heart and the affections, and are dear to both. We have abundant proof that the emotions of Shenstone, as we find them in his verse, were real; besides his own assertion, that he "felt very sensibly the affections he communicates," they bear the stamp of truth; and some passages of his life are the witnesses of it. He wooed and might have won; but prudence-unhappily, for it left him without an object of excitement to industry and exertion-forbade his allying to "poetry and poverty" the woman who had gained his heart. This unfortunate resolve not only left him without a comforter in his time of trouble, a counsellor in his moments of doubt and indecision, a companion in his hours of solitude and thought, a friend in his moments of higher aspirations or deeper despondencies,-it tinged all his feelings with repining melancholy-produced a longing after fame which he lacked the resolution to achieve ;-and the beauties he had called into existence out of a barren waste lost more than half their attractions, because he was without the ONE to talk with of their beauty, and by whom to hear their beauty praised. He created a paradise-and beheld from it the prospect of a jail. Dr. Johnson emphatically says of him-" he was a lamp that spent its oil in blazing"-and he adds a melancholy comment-" If he had lived a little longer, he would have been

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