the ten years, which intervened between this period and his own death, seem to have passed in cultivating the friendship, or mourning the absence, of men but, little likely to prepare him so soon to follow his father. To Congreve he expresses his poetical obligations in warm terms, in his Dedication to him of the Tragedy of Pyrrhus :

"From you my Muse her inspiration drew,
All she performs I consecrate to you.

You taught me first my genius and my power;
Taught me to know my own, but gave me more:
Others may sparingly their wealth impart,
But he gives noblest, who bestows an Art.
Nature, and you alone, can that confer;
And I owe you, what you yourself owe her."

In his ART OF LOVE, his friendship for Dryden and Congreve breaks forth :

"Well may great Dryden lasting Fame receive:
Tis all the dull, ungrateful world can give..
His high-rais'd works shall through all ages stand,
The noblest fabric in the Muses' land.

Beauty and strength at once his buildings show;
Above, delightful; and secure, below.

The sweet-tongu'd Congreve, with successful powers,
On strong foundations builds immortal towers.
Long as his mighty monarch may he fly,

And spread as wide, since he has soar'd as high.
Let Sacred Dryden's laurel crown his head,
Whilst I beneath them sit, and see them spread;
The lover only seeks the peaceful shade.”

}

In a copy of verses addressed to Anthony Hammond, Esq. the father of the poet, he enumerates his chief companions, for whose society he was then pining :

"When you, and Southern, Moyle, and Congreve meet,
The best good men, with the best-natur'd wit,

Good wine, good company, the better feast,
And, whene'er Wycherly is present, best:
Then, then your joys are perfectly compleat,
And sacred wit is at the noblest height.
Oh! how I long to be allow'd to share,
And gain a fame, by mingling with you there!

The country now can be no longer borne;
And, since you first are gone, I must return:
I come, I come, dear Hammond, to pursue
Pleasures I cannot know, depriv'd of you.
Restless, as lovers, till we meet, I live;
And envy this, because 'twill first arrive.
With joy I learnt Dryden designs to crown
All the great things he has already done.
No loss, no change of vigour can he feel,
Who dares attempt the sacred Mantuan still.
Take the best wishes of a grateful soul;
Congreve, and Moyle, and you, possess it whole.
Take all the thanks a Country Muse can send ;
And, in accepting this, oblige your friend."

In another copy to Walter Moyle, Esq. he discovers the same restless anxiety after pleasures which he could no longer enjoy :

"To you, dear youth, in these unpolish'd strains
And rural notes, your exil'd friend complains.
With pain this tedious banishment I bear

From the dear town, and you, the dearest there.
Now Fortune has withdrawn that pleasing scene,
We must not for a while appear again.

Here, in its stead, unusual prospects rise,
That dull the fancy and disgust the eyes:

Bleak groves of trees, shook by the northern winds;
And heavy aspects of unthinking hinds.
While here I stay, condemn'd to desert fields,
Denied the pleasures which the city yields,
My fortunes by the chance of war depress'd,
Lost at these years when I might use them best,
To crown your youth conspiring graces join;
Honour and bounty, wealth and wit, are thine.
Though, clogg'd with cares, I drag my restless hours,
I envy not the flowing ease of yours:

Still may they roll with circling pleasures on,
Nor you neglect to seize them as they run.
Time hastes away with an impetuous flight,
And all its joys soon vanish from our sight;

Which we shall mourn we us'd not, while we might.

I have omitted some of his Anacreontic Epicureisms; but enough remain to awaken deep regret that such should be the closing years of a son of Bishop Hopkins -such his friends and his feelings, his anxieties and his desires. While he was thus under the baneful influence

of that atheistic sentence, Let us eat and drink, for to morrow we die, surely the memory of his great father must, at times, have fearfully suggested to him, Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners. Awake to righteousness, and sin not.

A few months before his death he addressed an Epistle to Mr. Yalden at Oxford, from Londonderry, dated Aug. 3, 1699, which breathes a less sensual, though a still disquieted, strain:

My lab'ring Muse, grown tir'd of being hurl'd
And tost about in a tempestuous world,.

Prays for a calm, implores some quiet seat;

And seeks, what yours has found, a sweet retreat."

After enumerating the learned pleasures of the University, he breaks out

"O friend! have I not reason to complain
Of fate, that shut me out from such a train ?
For that, who would not shift the tragic scene?
Though tir'd of restless rambling up and down,
Or a more restless settlement in town:
Chang'd in the rest, let this my love commend,
Yalden, believe I never chang'd my friend."

He tells the Duchess of Ormond, in the Dedication of the COURT-PROSPECT, that he has unusual obligations to her; "your illustrious consort's family having been the constant patron of ours; which, now depressed by the late wars, and the chief pillar of it fallen, must depend for support on the first founders." A few months after he addressed his tragedy of FRIENDSHIP IMPROVED to Mr. Coke, in the Dedication given above, in the close of which he seems to anticipate his approaching death. Londonderry had been the scene of his father's dignity: here, too, the fortunes of the family seem to have been ruined; and here, it is likely, he breathed his last. It is affecting, deeply affecting, to see a son of Bishop Hopkins falling thus in the vigour of his years. The

Hymn, before mentioned, written about an hour before his death, when in great pain, is a valuable relic; and may lead us to cherish hopes that, like his predecessor in genius and in dissipation, Lord Rochester, he died a sincere penitent. I shall close the account of this young man with this beautiful composition:

A HYMN,

WRITTEN ABOUT AN HOUR BEFORE DEATH, WHEN IN GREAT PAIN.

"To thee, my God, though late, at last I turn;
Not for my sufferings, but my sins I mourn.
For all my crimes thy mercy I implore;
And, to those mercies thou hast shewn before,
Add, Lord, thy grace, that I may sin no more.
I beg thy goodness to prolong my breath,
And give me life, but to prepare for death.
Pardon, O pardon my transgressions past;
Lord, I repent; let my repentance last:-
Let me again this mortal race begin,
Let me live on, but not live on to sin:-
Which if thy heavenly wisdom find unfit,
Thy will be done, I humbly do submit.
But let thy sovereign mercy bear the sway,
Let justice throw the flaming sword away,
Or man can ne'er abide the dreadful day.
O, by the cross and passion of thy Son,
Whose sacred death the life of man begun,
By that dear blood which our redemption cost,
And by the coming of the Holy Ghost;
Deliver us amidst the life to come,

In the last hour, and at the day of doom!"

May every reader make this prayer his own!

APPENDIX II.

SOME ACCOUNT OF MR. JOHN HOPKINS, ANOTHER SON OF BISHOP HOPKINS.

"ANOTHER Son of the good Bishop of Londonderry; born Jan. 1, 1675. Like his elder brother's, his poetry was principally on subjects of love: like him too, his prospects in life appear to have terminated unfortunately. He published, in 1698, THE TRIUMPHS OF PEACE, or THE GLORIES OF NASSAU; a Pindaric Poem, occasioned by the conclusion of the Peace between the Confederacy and France, written at the time of his Grace the Duke of Ormond's entrance into Dublin. The design of this poem,' the author says in his Preface, begins, after the method of Pindar, to one great man, and rises to another; first touches the Duke, then celebrates the actions of the King, and so returns to the praises of the Duke again.'-But the principal performance of Mr. J. Hopkins was AMASIA, or THE WORKS OF THE MUSES, a Collection of Poems in three volumes, 1700. Each of these little volumes is divided into three books, and each book is inscribed to some beautiful patroness * ; amongst whom the Duchess of Grafton stands foremost. The last book is inscribed, To the Memory of Amasia,' whom he addresses throughout these volumes in the character of Sylvius. There is a vein of seriousness, if not of poetry, runs through the whole performance.

*Two of these "beautiful patronesses," are, however, James, Duke of Ormond, and Evelyn, Earl of Kingston. Mr. Nichols did not look through the whole volume. J. P.