Till tir'd by faction's persecuting host,
By friends betray'd who once had flatter'd most,
He seeks like wearied travellers an home,
And adds one saint to Bayham's sacred dome.
To this grave moral then, ye Fair! attend,
Life and its pleasures soon must have an end;
One general summons hence we all obey,
One fate absorbs this tenement of clay;
Man in his strength and beauty in its prime
Float but as bubbles on the expanse of time;
An airy sound that nought of substance wears,
A vision that enchants, then disappears!
Clad all in regal pomp, e'en princes must
Mix, undistinguish'd, with the peasant's dust;
Heroes together with the coward lye,
And beauty mingle with deformity:
Man struts awhile, by pageant folly drest,
A monarch, soldier, politician, priest;
Each acts his part, and when the scene is o'er,
Must tread that path which others trod before;
To tyrant death e'en youth and beauty bow;
And Milner be what Queensbury is now.

II. To the Right Honourable the Lady Viscountess Limerick, upon her leaving England in the year 1745. An Ode. Sent after her into Ireland. By Mr. Wright, the Astronomer.

I.

A general good was ne'er confin'd

To time, or place, by heaven design'd

To bless the human race:

The sun thus rolling round the year,
And climates varying ev'ry where,

Exemplify the case.

II.

No season fix'd was ever found,
Except on Eden's happy ground,
Where nature try'd her laws;
But she'd no sooner learn'd to change,
Than storks and swallows long'd to range,
And follow'd with applause.

III.

Thus you, who write, and talk with ease; Possess'd of ev'ry power to please,

With science at command;

Forsake your friends, and native home,

And, destin'd far from us to roam,
Now bless a foreign land.

IV.

The sun so sinks below the west,

When mortals have retired to rest,

And leaves the welkin pale;

Whilst fainting clouds his absence mourn, Despairing of his wish'd return,

And conscious shades prevail.

V.

So you, compell'd by partial fate,
Submissive in that happy state,

Which all your wishes crown,
Though sad, recede, in calm content,
And leave your friends to late lament,
A loss! they find too soon.

VI.

But expectation's yet alive,

And chearful hopes shall long survive,

That we may meet again;

Where future joys may still be our's,
Till when, all present ones be your's:
O Fortune, say amen.

"III. Hymn by Dr. Hawksworth.

"Attune the song to mournful strains, Of wrongs and woes the song complains, An orphan's voice essays to swell

The notes, that tears by turns repel.

Left on the world's bleak waste forlorn,
In sin conceiv'd, to sorrow born;
By guilt and shame foredoom'd to share
No mother's love, no father's care;

Alone, amidst surrounding strife,
And naked to the storms of life,
Despair looks round with aching eyes,
And sinking nature groans and dies.

But who is he who deigns to claim
From all the wrong'd a father's name?
To rapture tune the changing strains,
"Tis God whose hand the world sustains.

He smiling bends from Mercy's throne,
And calls the fatherless his own;
To stranger hands he gives the trust;
We feel that stranger hands are just.

They to the poor his gifts dispense,
And guard the weak with his defence:
Oh Father, let us still be thine,
And claim thine heritage divine;
Still blest while gratitude repays
Thy endless love with endless praise."

"IV. The Arcadia of Poussin.

"See how the skilful hand of fam'd Poussin
Copies from nature the fair past'ral scene!
Arcadia's self behold!-her waving woods,
Her flow'ry meads, and silver shining floods:
Each rural beauty rises to the sight,
And the whole landscape smiles serene delight.

A while it pleases,—but the painter knew,
To please us long he must affect us too:
With lively animated strokes of art,
Must touch the tender sympathizing heart.
For this, he in the midst a tomb design'd,
On which the statue of a maid reclin'd,
With graceful attitude informs the eye,

Here, (early fall'n to earth,) youth, beauty lye.
A short inscription tells her hapless fate,

Happy I liv'd and all life's sweets enjoy'd,

I in Arcadia liv'd, and yet I dy'd!' `

Near, see two blooming nymphs and two young swains, Who seem as if (while roving o'er the plains

In search of pleasure, innocent delight)

Chance had just struck them with the mournful sight:

See one the pointing finger wond'ring raise

To fix the rest, in more attentive gaze.

On each chang'd face you hardly can descry

The parting farewell of expiring joy.

While you regard, the sight deceives the ear,
And morals sage from rosy lips you hear;

"Tis thus imagination makes them say,

All must th' inexorable law obey;

Death spares not sex, nor youth, nor beauty's bloom,
No clime is an asylum from the tomb."

ART. DCCLII.

N°. LIII. Few Books animated by Genius: the great delight afforded by such as possess it.

"Emptis quod libris tibi bibliotheca referta est, Doctum et grammaticum te, Philomuse, putas ?"

MART.

AMONG the innumerable volumes, with which the shelves of libraries groan, how few are animated with any striking portion of that living spirit, which is infused by genius. Of the best of them, the major part are heavy and dead masses of learning. Dr. Johnson, speaking of Dr. Birch the biographer, remarked, "Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation, but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand, than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties."* Minds must be more than ordinarily endowed, to give vitality to ideas and language without any aid from external objects. A lively and breathing picture of the visions of the brain can only be produced by the fervour of genius.

Books are in general little more than transcripts of those which went before them, with a little difference of arrangement and combination: the same ingredients only poured into new vessels. Memory is the principal faculty which has been exercised in making them. When thoughts or images are brought forward, which have originated in the mind of the author, they will exhibit a freshness and vigour,

* Boswell, I, 138.