How fair the scene by fancy cast,
Rich with affection's balmy breath!
Ah dream! the loveliest, as the last,
That gilded the dark hour of death.

Even on his wandering soul it smiled,
When flitting shades around him pressed;
A transient gleam of joy beguiled

His pangs-one moment he was blessed.

He saw the partner of his days,

Hailed each loved friend with ancient claim,
And with a tender lingering gaze,
Responded to the father's name.

And then he would a blessing breathe,
A pledge of Christian faith impart,
And with a dower of love bequeath
The latest counsels of his heart.

• But then he saw the phantoms fade;
He gazed on strangers, rude and cold.
His last fond look was hope betrayed;
His parting sigh, a wish untold.'

6

There are several poems by the late Mrs. John Hunter, one of which, however, has long been familiar to us, as the words of an exquisite canzonet of Haydn's, La Costanza.' All the compositions of this lady are elegant and replete with feeling. 'Belshazzar's Feast,' by Mrs. Hemans, is a fine poem: its length precludes our transcribing it. Besides these ladies, we meet with the names of Lady Dacre, Miss Anna Maria Porter, Mrs. Grant, and the Editor. We are glad that they are not all single ladies, for reasons illustrated by the following sportive epistle from Sir William Pepys to a friend on his wedding day.

"Give me, to bless domestic life,
With social ease, secure from strife,
(Cries every fellow of a college)
A wife not overstocked with knowledge."
This every fool who loves to quote
What, parrot-like, he learns by rote;
And every coxcomb whose pretence
To wisdom, marks his want of sense;
And all good house-wives skill'd in darning,
Who rail with much contempt at larning;
And all who place their greatest good in
The composition of a pudding;
Repeat with such triumphant air,
Such deep sagacity, you'd swear

That knowledge, among woman-kind,
Was deadliest poison to the mind;-
A crime which, (venial if concealed,
Like theft at Sparta,) when revealed,
The guilty stamps with such disgrace,
No culprit dares to shew her face.

But tell me, you, who dared despise
Such vulgar maxims, who from eyes
Which well might grace the loveliest fair,
Turned not because bright sense beamed there;
Tell me, through all these thirteen years,
Through varying scenes of hopes and fears,
Could ignorance more faithful prove?
Could folly's self more warmly love?
Then long may this auspicious morn,
At each still happier year's return,
Tell, what thy sweet experience shews,
That head and heart are friends, not foes.'

The cleverest poem in the collection, unquestionably, is the Epistle to Earl Harcourt by F, on his wishing her to spell her name of Catherine with a K.' It is a mere jeu d'esprit, but its sportiveness, ingenuity, and easy versification, distinguish it as the trifling of a very accomplished mind. It is much too long, however, to extract. An ode to Memory by the late Lord Glenbervie, is affecting from the circumstances connected with it. It appears to have been written some years before the death of his lady; and in an additional verse, dated 1817, his Lordship adverts to his loss after long years of bliss.' Only two years after, his only son, the Hon. Fred. Douglas, just rising into eminence as a senator, and but recently married, was suddenly cut off in the prime of life. Brief but touching is the record of parental grief in the following added stanza, dated 1819.

Ah! no: for me no balm hast thou,
A widowed, childless father now!

And grief my earthly-endless doom
Yet hope still lives beyond the grave:
God surely tries us but to save!

They beckon me :-I come! I come!'

The following poem is anonymous. Our poetical readers will not think that it stands in need of the recommendation of any name.

• Friends! when I die, prepare my welcome grave
Where the eternal ocean rolls his wave.

Rough though the blast, still let his free born breeze,
Which freshness wafts to earth from endless seas,

Sigh o'er my sleep, and let his glancing spray
Weep tear-drops sparkling with a heavenly ray.
A constant mourner then shall watch my tomb,
And nature deepen while it soothes the gloom.

O let that element whose voice had power
To cheer my darkest, soothe my loneliest hour,
Which through my life my spirit loved so well,
Still o'er my grave its tale of glory tell!
The generous ocean, whose proud waters bear
The spoil and produce they disdain to wear;
Whose wave claims kindred with the azure sky,
From whom reflected stars beam gloriously;
Emblem of God, unchanging, infinite,
Awful alike in loveliness and might;
Rolls still untiring like the tide of time,
Binds man to man, and mingles clime with clime.
And as the sun, which, from each lake and stream
Thro' all the world, where'er their waters gleam,
Collects the cloud his heavenly ray conceals,
And slakes the thirst which all creation feels,
So ocean gathers tribute from each shore,
To bid each climate know its want no more.

<Exiled on earth, a fettered prisoner here,
Barred from all treasures which my heart holds dear,
The kindred soul, the fame my youth desired,

Whilst hope hath fled, which once each vision fired;
Dead to all joy, still on my fancy glow

Dreams of delight which heaven-ward thoughts bestow;
Not then in death shall I unconscious be

Of that whose whispers are eternity.'

We can make room for only two more poems. The following song is worthy at least of all the space it will occupy. It has annexed to it the name of John Richardson, Esq. it would not have disgraced Burns.

:

There are two poems by H. Gally Knight, Esq. both of great merit. The Portrait' is almost worthy of being hung up to correspond with Cowper's lines on his Mother's Picture. The other poem, which we have reserved for our concluding extract, shall speak for itself.

'De la CHARITÉ pour les PAUVRES PRISONNIERS, DIEPPE. Yes, 'tis a year since last that plaintive cry,

"Pity the prisoners," touched my wandering ear:
And now again their hat is lowered from high,
And the same famished, sharpened features peer
Through the stern bars.-Can the revolving year,
With its rich interchange of joys, have brought
Health to my body, transport to my thought,
Whilst man hath left his fellow-creatures here?

• France! I have trod thy vine-clad hills, and eyed
Milan's cathedral, the blue Glacier's wall,

Como's fair lake in all its summer's pride,
Baronial Heidelberg, Schaffhausen's fall,-

Till, lost in ecstacy, my spirit flew

Forth with the breeze, exulting o'er the view;
And, as that breeze along a bank of flowers
Gathers their odours, with a silent awe
Incorporating them into my powers,

I mingled with the mighty things I saw,

Bold forms, sweet tints, soft Nature's whispered tone,
And made the feelings of the Alps my own:
Just as the lake, beneath the mountain's brow,
Reflects the charms that on its borders glow,
Receives them to its breast, and seems to blend
Their nature in its own, as friend to friend.
And I at will have seen and mused on man,

His varied character and social plan,

The prudent Dutchman, the more simple Swiss,
Till, home returning, the familiar kiss

Of loving lips received me.

Vol. XX. N.S.

X

Out, alas!

On human mercy! Whilst my hours have flown
Lovely as sunbeams through the prism glass,
Your bondaged months have dragged their weight alone,
To you the same,
Poor barr'd and pittanced thralls!

How bright the day, or rich the harvest came!

Oh, how can guilty souls presume to meet
Him who redeemed them, on his judgment seat,
Who taught them but one daily prayer to Heaven,
"As we forgive, so may we be forgiven !"
Bankrupts and beggars! how can they forget
The retribution of his awful threat,

On fierce exactors of a fellow-servant's debt?
Away! no kneeling mockery to your Lord!
When ye but asked him, he forgave you all;
E'en you whose patience will not once afford
A doit's forbearance at a brother's call.
Yourselves have judged yourselves, and wrath defied,
By every drop of comfort you denied ;

And heaped consuming horrors on your head,
In every tear your withering victims shed;
Those tears which baffled avarice can spurn,
Then, reckless, to life's breathing world return
To feast with Pharisees, the sunbeam share,
Weep o'er a play, nor tremble at a prayer.
Grasping the pound of flesh revenge makes dear,
Age after age, man pens his equal here.

He owed you monies; therefore, whilst the blood
Boils at his heart, and children cry for food,—
Whilst strong his energies, erect his form,
His feelings fresh about him,-like a storm,
You, the rich tyrant, fastened on your prey,
Carried him from his plundered home away,
And to this living sepulchre consigned
A fading body and a writhing mind;
Here left in hateful solitude to die

By the slow poison of much misery.

Pity the prisoners! Yes, though thrown aside,

Like serpents that dared cross the path of pride,
And darken, with your wretched looks, the day
Of purse-swol'n neighbours, whom want could not pay;
And though ye lose, withdrawn from public sight,
The throng'd world's sympathy, your humble right,
Yet do your cruel sorrows justice find
Among the human portion of mankind,-
The glorious few who, true to virtue's cause,
Would mend their country's by religion's laws;
They who have made the better part their choice,
And pass'd protected thro' life's furnace flame,
Nor need, like me, the sufferer's pleading voice,
To wake their nature to a sense of shame;

I...

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