Can in her female clubs dispute If chance a mouse creeps in her sight, Can finely counterfeit a fright; So sweetly screams if it comes near her, Thinks nothing gives one airs so pretty, And vows she scarce can fetch her breath; In party furious to her power; LAWYERS. I own the curses of mankind Sit light upon a lawyer's mind; The clamours of ten thousand tongues Break not his rest, nor hurt his lungs. He knows no guilt who knows no sin. By clients always overwitted: With periods long, in terms abstruse, The lawyer is a common drudge, To fight our cause before the judge! And, what is yet a greater curse, Condemn'd to bear his client's purse, While he, at ease, secure and light, Walks boldly home at dead of night: When term is ended leaves the town, Trots to his country-mansion down, And, disencumber'd of his load, No danger dreads upon the road; Despiseth rapparees, and rides Safe through the Newry mountains' sides.1 SAMUEL BOYSE. BORN 1708 - DIED 1749. it because men of genius have been Bohemians, are about as wise as if they desired to be in [Samuel Boyse is a glaring instance of how | and not a strength, and that those who follow readily a man of genius may be a fool in conduct, and how the grossest manners and most unpardonable vices may co-exist with the most wonderful talent. He is also a proof, if proof were needed, that Bohemianism is a weakness 1 Famous for the exploits of Redmond O'Hanlon, the Irish Robin Hood. oculated with some foul disease because some great poet or writer had one time suffered from it. Boyse's life is indeed among the saddest in all our long list of many-sided and many-fated authors. Boyse was born in Dublin in the year 1708. He was the son of a well-known Dissenting minister of that day, one of whose sermons was ordered to be burned by the Irish parliament in 1711. He received the rudiments of his education at a private school, and at eighteen was sent to the University of Glasgow, where, before completing his first year of study, he married a tradesman's daughter. The marriage was an unhappy one; vice and extravagance wedded to vice and extravagance. However, though vexed at his marriage, the foolish father of the foolish poet continued for a while to support him, but this at last ceasing, Boyse moved to Edinburgh, where his genius and talents soon procured him many friends. Among these was the Countess of Eglinton, to whom in 1731 he addressed his first volume of poems. About this time also appeared his elegy on Lady Stormount, entitled The Tears of the Muses, which is still spoken of as a graceful poem, and with which Lord Stormount was so much pleased that he presented Boyse with a handsome donation. cut a hole large enough to admit his arm, and, placing the paper on his knee, scribbled in the best manner he could." In 1742 he got thrown into a sponginghouse, but by some means obtained his liberty before long. About this time he wrote several poems, "but these, though excellent of their kind, were lost to the world by being introduced with no advantage." He had also constantly recourse to the meanest tricks to procure donations or so-called loans. Sometimes he would cause his wife to appear in tears and declare that he was on the point of death, and when relieved by some one his benefactor would probably be astonished by meeting the dying man next day in the street. In 1743 he published a successful ode on the Battle of Dettingen, entitled Albion's Triumph. In 1745 he was at Reading, engaged on a hack work "An Historical Review of the Transactions of Europe, from the Commencement of the War with Spain in 1739, to the Insurrection in Scotland in 1745." This appeared in 1747, and, according to one of his biographers, "is said not to be destitute of merit." While at Reading his wife died, and on his return to London Boyse for a time acted a little more decently than usual. Reform, however, was now almost too late: his health was ruined, and he could only drag on a miserable career until, in May, 1749, after a lingering illness, he died in a low lodging in Shoe Lane, and was buried by the parish authorities of St. Bride's. In the two volumes of Boyse's works which have been published many poems deserve to rank very high. The Home of Content is a poem which might have been written by Akenside at his very best; but The Glory of the Deity is a noble poem, which Akenside even at his best could never have written. Harvey, no very great critic, by the way, speaks of it as "a beautiful and instructive poem;" and Fielding, a much more weighty authority, gives a quotation from it which he calls "a noble one, and taken from a poem long since buried in oblivion; a proof that good books, no more than good men, do not always survive the bad." However, the poem had not fallen into such oblivion as Fielding imagined, for by 1752 a third edition of it had appeared. The chief beauties of Boyse's poetry are, strange to say, sublimity, elegance, and The success of these publications, as well as the favour of those able to further him, might well have been used by Boyse as a first step towards fame and greatness. But his nature was low and grovelling, and so soon as he became possessed of a pound or two it was spent in vulgar but costly luxuries and dissipation. He soon fell into such a state of wretchedness and contempt that he determined to leave Edinburgh and try his fortune in the great metropolis. This decision he made known to the Duchess of Gordon, who, still believing in his abilities, gave him a letter of recommendation to Pope, and obtained him another to Lord-chancellor King. However, on coming to London he was too indolent to make use of the recommendations, and in a short time he had fallen so low that he had no clothes to appear in. Cibber says that he had neither shirt nor coat nor any kind of apparel; "the sheets in which he lay were gone to the pawnbroker's; he was obliged to be confined to bed with no other covering than a blanket; and he had little support but what is got by writ-pathos; their chief defect a certain looseness ing letters to his friends in the most abject style. His mode of studying and writing was curious: he sat up in bed, with the blanket wrapped about him, through which he had of construction in places, caused by rapidity of production and utter want of revision. His poems were each flung upon the world to serve some momentary purpose, and when To keep him from the breath of Boreas thin. Nor knew the cause my first emotion bred Kind Patience whispered me our host was called Sweet was his earthen floor with rushes spread, Sweet was the quilt composed his healthy bed, Long time with Patience fair discourse he held How stood I shock'd-when in the semblant face And sing the funeral dirge in Runic rhyme, "What boots thee now, lost youth! that cross the Thou spread the daring sail from pole to pole, "Yet take these honours, thy deserv'd reward, Here take thy rest within this hallow'd ground, He ceas'd: attentive to the words he said, "O Heaven!" cried I, "what sorrows will he feel, And learn'd of him the happiness to live! Debarr'd the promis'd hope of thy return; Not all his skill the mental wound can heal, Or cure a loss he must so justly mourn! Here with observant eye, and look serene, He said obedient to his just commands When Patience from my side abruptly broke, THE GLORY OF THE DEITY. But oh, adventurous Muse, restrain thy flight. See on his throne the gaudy Persian placed Yet mark this scene of painted grandeur yield Yet these survey, confounded and undone That sun himself withdraws his lessen'd beam Transcendent Power! sole arbiter of fate, Who range the wilds or haunt the pasture green! Great Lord of life, from whom this humble frame |