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of the Northern or Southern district. In various independent copies or versions of the same legend, we find the victory given to the one side or to the other, and the English or Scottish hero alternately playing the nobler and more romantic part. Besides a very large number of these purely heroic ballads, Percy gave specimens of an immense series of songs and lyrics extending down to a comparatively late period of English history, embracing even the Civil War and the Restoration but the chief interest of his collection, and the chief service he rendered to literature by his publication, is concentrated on the earlier portion. It is impossible to exaggerate the influence exerted by Percy's 'Reliques; ' this book has been devoured with the most intense interest by generation after generation of English poets, and has undoubtedly contributed to give a first direction to the youthful genius of many of our most illustrious writers. The boyish enthusiasm of Walter Scott was stirred, 'as with the sound of a trumpet,' by the vivid recitals of the old Border rhapsodists; and but for Percy it is possible that we should have had neither the Lady of the Lake' nor Waverley.' Nor was it upon the genius of Scott alone that is impressed the stamp of this ballad imitation: Wordsworth, Coleridge, even Tennyson himself have been deeply modified, in the form and colouring of their productions, by the same cause and perhaps the influence of the 'Reliques,' whether direct or indirect, near or remote, will be perceptible to distant ages in English poetry and fiction."-Shaw's "Hist. Eng. Lit.," pp. 412-414.

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JAMES MACPHERSON.

"James Macpherson, born 1738, died 1796, a Scotch poet, whose first work, and that which brought him mostly into notice, was a translation of poems attributed by him to Ossian. These poems possess great beauty; but their authenticity was disputed by Dr. Johnson and other writers, and as zealously maintained by the editor and Dr. Blair; it is now, however, generally admitted that Ossian's poems are a forgery. In 1773 Macpherson published a translation of the Iliad' into heroic prose, a work of little value. He was also the author of an 'Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland,' a 'History of Great Britain, from 1660 to the Accession of the House of Hanover,' and of some political pamphlets in defence of Lord North's administration, for which he obtained a place and a seat in the House of Commons."-Beeton's "Dict. Univ. Biog."

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THOMAS CHATTERTON.

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"Noname in our literature affords an example of earlier precocity or of a sadder career than that of the marvellous boy who perished in his pride,' Thomas Chatterton. He was born at Bristol in 1752, was son of a sexton and parish schoolmaster, and died by suicide before he had completed his eighteenth year. Yet in that brief interval he gave proof of power unsurpassed in one so young, and executed a number of forgeries almost without parallel for ingenuity and variety. The writings which he passed off as originals he professes to have discovered in Cannynge's Coffre,' a chest preserved in the muniment-room of the old church of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol. These he produced gradually, generally taking advantage of some public occurrence likely to give them an interest. In October, 1768, a new bridge across the Avon was opened, and forthwith he sent an account of the ceremonies that took place on the opening of the old bridge-processions, tournaments, and religious solemnities. Mr. Burguin, who was fond of heraldic honours, he supplies with a pedigree reaching back to William the Conqueror. To another citizen he presents the Romaunt of the Cnyghté,' written by one of his ancestors between four and five hundred years before. To a religious citizen he gives an ancient fragment of a on the Holy Spirit, wroten by Thomas Rowley in the fifteenth century. To another with antiquarian tastes he gives an account of the churches of the city three hundred years before. And to Horace Walpole, who was busy writing the History of British Painters,' he gives a record of Carvellers and Peyncters who once flourished in Bristol. Besides all these forgeries he sent to the Town and Country Magazine' a number of poems which occasioned a sharp controversy. Gray and Mason at once pronounced them spurious imitations, but many maintained their genuineness. Meanwhile, Chatterton had obtained a release from the attorney's office where he had served for the last three years, and had come to London. Here he wrote for magazines and newspapers, gaining thereby a very precarious subsistence. At last he grew despondent, took to drinking, which aggravated his constitutional tendencies, and after being reduced to actual want, tore up his papers, and destroyed himself by taking arsenic. was interred in the burying-ground of the Shoe Lane Workhouse, and the citizens of Bristol afterwards erected, in their city, a monument to his memory. His poems, published under the name of Rowley, consist of the tragedy of 'Ella,' the 'Ode to Ella,' a ballad entitled the Bristow Tragedy, or the Death of Sir Charles Bowdin,' some pastoral poems, and other minor pieces. The Ode to Ella' has all the air of a modern poem, except spelling and phraseology. Most of the others

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have allusions and a style more or less appropriate to the time in which they profess to have been written; but they are none of them likely to deceive a competent scholar. Chatterton displays occasionally great power of satire, and generally a luxuriance of fancy and richness of invention which, considering his youth, were not unworthy of Spenser. His avowed compositions are very inferior to the forgeries a fact that Scott explains by supposing that in the forgeries all his powers must have been taxed to the utmost to support the deception."-Dr. Angus's "Handbook Eng. Lit." See Allibone's "Crit. Dict. Eng. Lit."; Shaw's "Hist. Eng. Lit."; Gilfillan's ed. "Chatterton's Poems."

WILLIAM FALCONER.

"William Falconer, born 1730, died 1769, was the son of a barbar in Edinburgh, and went to sea at an early age in a merchant vessel of Leith. He was afterwards mate of a ship that was wrecked in the Levant, and was one of only three out of her crew that were saved, a catastrophe which formed the subject of his future poem. He was for some time in the capacity of a servant to Campbell, the author of 'Lexiphanes,' when purser of a ship. Campbell is said to have discovered in Falconer talents worthy of cultivation, and when the latter distinguished himself as a poet, used to boast that he had been his scholar. What he learned from Campbell it is not very easy to ascertain. His education, as he often assured Governor Hunter, had been confined to reading, writing, and a little arithmetic, though in the course of his life he picked up some acquaintance with the French, Spanish, and Italian languages. In these his countryman was not likely to have much assisted him; but he might have lent him books, and possibly instructed him in the use of figures. Falconer published his 'Shipwreck' in 1762, and by the favour of the Duke of York, to whom it was dedicated, obtained the appointment of a midshipman in the Royal George,' and afterwards that of purser in the 'Glory' frigate. He soon afterwards married a Miss Hicks, an accomplished and beautiful woman, the daughter of the surgeon of Sheerness-yard. At the peace of 1763 he was on the point of being reduced to distressed circumstances by his ship being laid up in ordinary at Chatham, when, by the friendship of Commissioner Hanway, who ordered the cabin of the Glory' to be fitted up for his residence, he enjoyed for some time a retreat for study without expense or embarrassment. Here he employed himself in compiling his 'Marine Dictionary,' which appeared in 1769, and has been always highly spoken of by those who are capable of estimating its merits.

He embarked also in the politics of the day, as a poetical antagonist to Churchill, but with little advantage to his memory. Before the publication of his 'Marine Dictionary,' he had left his retreat at Chatham for a less comfortable abode in the metropolis, and appears to have struggled with considerable difficulties, in the midst of which he received proposals from the late Mr. Murray, the bookseller, to join him in the business which he had newly established. The cause of his refusing this offer was, in all probability, the appointment which he received to the pursership of the 'Aurora,' East. Indiaman. In that ship he embarked for India, in September, 1769, but the Aurora' was never heard of after she passed the Cape, and was thought to have foundered in the Channel of Mozambique; so that the poet of the Shipwreck' may be supposed to have perished by the same species of calamity which he had rehearsed.

"The subject of the Shipwreck,' and the fate of its author, bespeak an uncommon partiality in its favour. If we pay respect to the ingenious scholar who can produce agreeable verses amidst the shades of retirement, or the shelves of his library, how much more interest must we take in the ship-boy on the high and giddy mast,' cherishing refined visions of fancy at the hour which he may casually snatch from fatigue and danger. Nor did Falconer neglect the proper acquirements of seamanship in cultivating poetry, but evinced considerable knowledge of his profession, both in his Marine Dictionary' and in the nautical precepts of the Shipwreck.' In that poem he may be said to have added a congenial and peculiarly British subject to the language; at least, we had no previous poem of any length of which the characters and catastrophe were purely naval.

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"The scene of the catastrophe (though he followed only the fact of his own history) was poetically laid amidst seas and shores where the mind easily gathers romantic associations, and where it supposes the most picturesque vicissitudes of scenery and climate. The spectacle of a majestic British ship on the shores of Greece brings as strong a reminiscence to the mind as can well be imagined, of the changes which time has wrought in transplanting the empire of arts and civilization. Falconer's characters are few; but the calm, sagacious commander, and the rough, obstinate Rodmond, are well contrasted. Some part of the love-story of Palemon' is rather swainish and protracted, yet the effect of his being involved in the calamity leaves a deeper sympathy in the mind for the daughter of Albert, when we conceive her at once deprived both of a father and a lover. The incidents of the Shipwreck,' like those of a wellwrought tragedy, gradually deepen, while they yet leave a suspense of hope and fear to the imagination. In the final scene there is something that deeply touches our compassion in

the picture of the unfortunate man who is struck blind by a flash of lightning at the helm. I remember, by the way, to have met with an affecting account of the identical calamity befalling the steersman of a forlorn vessel in a similar moment, given in a prose and veracious history of the loss of a vessel on the coast of America. Falconer skilfully heightens this trait by showing its effect on the commiseration of Rodmond, the roughest of his characters, who guides the victim of misfortune to lay hold of a sail.

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'A flash, quick glancing on the nerves of light,

Struck the pale helmsman with eternal night :

Rodmond, who heard a piteous groan behind,

Touch'd with compassion, gazed upon the blind;

And, while around his sad companions crowd,

He guides th' unhappy victim to the shroud,

Hie thee aloft, my gallant friend! he cries; Thy only succour on the mast relies!'

"The effect of some of his sea phrases is to give a definite and authentic character to his descriptions; but that of most of them, to a landsman's ear, resembles slang, and produces obscurity. His diction, too, generally abounds with common-place expletives and feeble lines. His scholarship on the shores of Greece is only what we should accept of from a seaman; but his poem has the sensible charm of appearing a transcript of reality, and leaves an impression of truth and nature on the mind." -Campbell's "Specimens," 480, 481. See Allibone's "Crit. Dict. Eng. Lit."; Chambers's 'Cyc. Eng. Lit.," vol. ii.

66

ROBERT LLOYD.

"Robert Lloyd was born in London in 1733. He was the son of one of the under-masters of Westminster School. He went to Cambridge, where he became distinguished for his talents and notorious for his dissipation. He became an usher under his father, but soon tired of the drudgery, and commenced professional author. He published a poem called

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The Actor,' which attracted attention, and was the precursor of the 'Rosciad.' wrote for periodicals, produced some theatrical pieces of no great merit, and edited the 'St. James's Magazine.' This failed, and Lloyd, involved in pecuniary distresses, was cast into the Fleet. Here he was deserted by all his boon companions except Churchill, to whose sister he was attached, and who allowed him a guinea a-week and a servant, besides proWhen moting a subscription for his benefit.

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the news of Churchill's death arrived, Lloyd was seated at dinner; he became instantly sick, cried out Poor Charles! I shall follow him soon,' and died in a few weeks. Churchill's sister, a woman of excellent abilities, waited on Lloyd during his illness, and died soon after him of a broken heart. This was in 1764.

"Lloyd was a minor Churchill. He had not his brawny force, but he had more than his liveliness of wit, and was a much better-conditioned man, and more temperate in his satire. Cowper knew, loved, and admired, and in some of his verses imitated, Robert Lloyd."-Gilfillan's "Less-known Brit. Poets," 126, 127.

CHARLES CHURCHILL.

"Charles Churchill, born 1731, died 1764. He was the son of a respectable clergyman, who was curate and lecturer of St. John's, Westminster. He was educated at Westminster School, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, but not being disposed

'O'er crabbed authors life's gay prime to waste,

Or cramp wild genius in the chains of taste,'

he left the university abruptly, and coming to London made a clandestine marriage in the Fleet. His father, though much displeased at the proceeding, became reconciled to what could not be remedied, and received the imprudent couple for about a year under his roof. After this young Churchill went for some time to study theology at Sunderland, in the north of England, and having taken orders, officiated at Cadbury, in Somersetshire, and at Rainham, a living of his father's in Essex, till upon the death of his father he succeeded, in 1758, to the curacy and lectureship of St. John's, Westminster. Here he conducted himself for some time with a decorum suitable to his profession, and increased his narrow income by undertaking private tuition. He got into debt, it is true; and Dr. Lloyd, of Westminster, the father of his friend the poet, was obliged to mediate with his creditors for their acceptance of a composition; but when fortune put it into his power Churchill honourably discharged all his obligations. His Rosciad' appeared at first anonymously, in 1761, and was ascribed to one or other of half the wits in town; but his acknowledgement of it, and his poetical 'Apology,' in which he retaliated upon the critical reviewers of his poem (not fearing to affront even Fielding and Smollett), made him at once famous and formidable. The players, at least, felt him to be so. Garrick himself, who, though extolled in the

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Rosciad,' was

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sarcastically alluded to in the Apology,' courted him like a suppliant; and his satire had the effect of driving poor Tom Davies, the biographer of Garrick, though he was a tolerable performer, from the stage. A letter from another actor, of the name of Davis, who seems rather to have dreaded than experienced his severity, is preserved in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century,' in which the poor comedian deprecates the poet's censure in an expected publication, as likely to deprive him of bread. What was mean in Garrick might have been an object of compassion in this humble man; but Churchill answered him with surly contempt, and holding to the plea of justice, treated his fears with the apparent satisfaction of a hangman. His moral character, in the meantime, did not keep pace with his literary reputation. As he got above neglect he seems to have thought himself above censure. His superior, the Dean of Westminster, having had occasion to rebuke him for some irregularities, he threw aside at once the clerical habit and profession, and arrayed his ungainly form in the splendour of fashion. Amidst the remarks of his enemies, and what he pronounces the still more insulting advice of his prudent friends upon his irregular life, he published his epistle to Lloyd, entitled 'Night,' a sort of manifesto of the impulses, for they could not be called principles, by which he professed his conduct to be influenced. The leading maxims of this epistle are, that prudence and hypocrisy in these times are the same thing! that good hours are but fine words; and that it is better to avow faults than to conceal them. Speaking of his convivial enjoyments, he

says

'Night's laughing hours unheeded slip

away,

Nor one dull thought foretells approach of day.'

In the same description he somewhat awkwardly introduces

'Wine's gay God, with TEMPERANCE by his side,

-Whilst HEALTH attends.'

How would Churchill have belaboured any fool or hypocrite who had pretended to boast of health and temperance in the midst of orgies that turned night into day!

"By his connection with Wilkes he added political to personal causes of animosity, and did not diminish the number of unfavourable eyes that were turned upon his private character. He had certainly, with all his faults, some strong and good qualities of the heart; but the particular proofs of these were not likely to be sedulously collected as materials of his biography, for he had now placed himself in that light of reputation when a man's likeness is taken by its shadow and darkness.

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Accordingly, the most prominent circumstances that we afterwards learn respecting him are, that he separated from his wife, and seduced the daughter of a tradesman in Westminster. At the end of a fortnight, either from his satiety or repentance, he advised this unfortunate woman to return to her friends; but took her back again upon her finding her home made intolerable by the reproaches of a sister. His reputation for inebriety also received some public acknowledgments. garth gave as much celebrity as he could to his love of porter, by representing him in the act of drinking a mug of that liquor in the shape of a bear; but the painter had no great reason to congratulate himself ultimately on the effects of his caricature. Our poet was included in the general warrant that was issued for apprehending Wilkes. He hid himself, however, and avoided imprisonment. In the autumn of 1764 he paid a visit to Mr. Wilkes at Boulogne, where he caught a military fever, and expired in his thirty-third

year.

"Churchill may be ranked as a satirist immediately after Pope and Dryden, with perhaps a greater share of humour than either. He has the bitterness of Pope, with less wit to atone for it; but no mean share of the free manner and energetic plainness of Dryden. After the Rosciad' and Apology' he began his poem of the Ghost' (founded on the well-known story of Cock-lane), many parts of which tradition reports him to have composed when scarce recovered from his fits of drunkenness. It is certainly a rambling and scandalous production, with a few such original gleams as might have crossed the brain of genius amidst the bile and lassitude of dissipation. The novelty of political warfare seems to have given a new impulse to his powers in the Prophecy of Famine,' a satire on Scotland, which even to Scotchmen must seem to sheath its sting in its laughable extravagance. His poetical Epistle to Hogarth' is remarkable, amidst its savage ferocity, for one of the best panegyrics that was ever bestowed on that painter's works. He scalps indeed even barbarously the, infirmities of the man, but, on the whole, spares the laurels of the artist. The following is his description of Hogarth's powers :

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'In walks of humour, in that cast of style,

Which, probing to the quick, yet makes us smile;

In comedy, his nat'ral road to fame,
Nor let me call it by a meaner name,
Where a beginning, middle, and an end
Are aptly join'd; where parts on parts
depend,

Each made for each, as bodies for their soul,

So as to form one true and perfect

whole,

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"But without enumerating similar passages, which may form an exception to the remark, the general tenor of his later works fell beneath his first reputation. His 'Duellist' is positively dull; and his Gotham,' the imaginary realm of which he feigns himself the sovereign, is calculated to remind us of the proverbial wisdom of its sages. It was justly complained that he became too much an echo of himself, and that before his short literary career was closed, his originality appeared to be exhausted."-Campbell's "Specimens," pp. 454-456. See Allibone's "Crit. Dict. Eng. Lit."; Shaw's "Hist. Eng. Lit."; Gilfillan's Ed. of "Churchill's Poems."

MICHAEL BRUCE.

"We refer our readers to Dr. Mackelvie's well-known and very able Life of poor Bruce' for his full story, and for the evidence on which his claim to the Cuckoo' is rested. Apart from external evidence, we think that poem more characteristic of Bruce's genius than of Logan's, and have therefore ranked it under Bruce's name.

"Bruce was born on the 27th of March, 1746, at Kinnesswood, parish of Portmoak, county of Kinross. His father was a weaver, and Michael was the fifth of a family of eight children. Poor as his parents were, they were intelligent, religious, and most conscientious in the discharge of their duties to their children. In the summer months Michael was sent out to herd cattle; and one loves to imagine the young poet wrapt in his plaid, under a whin-bush, while the storm was blowing, or gazing at the rainbow from the summit of a fence,-or admiring at Lochleven and its old ruined castle,- -or weaving around the form of some little maiden, herding in a neighbouring field-some Jeanie Morrison-one of those webs of romantic early love which are beautiful and evanescent as the gossamer, but how exquisitely relished while they last! Say not, with one of his biographers, that his education was retarded by this employment;' he was receiving in these solitary fields a kind of education which no school and no college could furnish; nay, who knows but, as he saw the cuckoo winging her way from one deep woodland recess to another, or heard her dull, divine monotone coming from the heart of the forest, the germ of that exquisite strain, 'least in the kingdom' of the heaven of poetry in size, but immortal in its smallness, was sown in his mind? In winter he went to school, and profited there so much, that at fifteen (not a very early period, after all, for a Scotch student beginning his curriculum-in our day twelve was not an uncommon age) he was judged fit for going to college. And just in time a windfall came across the path of our poet, the mention of which may make many of our readers smile. This was a legacy which was left his father by a relative, amounting to 200 marks, or £11. 2s. 6d. With this munificent sum in his pocket, Bruce was sent to study at Edinburgh College. Here he became distinguished by his attainments, and particularly his taste and poetic powers; and here, too, he became acquainted with John Logan, afterwards his biographer. After spending three sessions at college, supported by his parents and other friends, he returned to the country, and taught a school at Gairney Bridge (a place famous for the first meeting of the first presbytery of the Seceders), for £11 of salary. Thence he removed to Foresthill, near Alloa, where a damp school-room, poverty, and hard labour in teaching, united to injure his health and

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