Nor fhall a fancied God inspire,

As poets, fabling, tell.

Gabriel for thee fhall ftring the lyre,

And God himself reveal.

And when you touch each warbling ftring,
On yon celestial ground,

Echo through unknown Worlds fhall ring,
And lift'ning space refound.

CLEORA.

GILIMER

Selected Poetry.

GILIMER,

BY THE REV. W. L. BOWLES.

MFR was the laft of the Vandal kings of Africa, conquered by BELISARIUS; he retired to the heights of Pappua, when his army was entirely beaten. His answer to the message fent to him there by Belifarius, is well known. He defired the conqueror to fend him a loaf of bread, a fponge, and a lute. This request was thus explained; that the king had baked bread, fince his arrival on that mountain, and that he not tafted any carnestly longed to eat a morfel of it, before he died; the sponge he wanted to allay a tumour, that was fallen upon one of his eyes; and the lute, on which he had learned to play, was to affist him in fetting fome elegiac verses, which he had compofed on the fubject of his misfortunes.

HENCE, foldier, to thy plumed chief;

Tell him, that Afric's king,

Broken by years, and bow'd with grief,
Afks but a lute, that he may fing
His forrows to the moon; or (if he weep)
A fponge, which he in tears may steep;
And let his pity fpare a little bread!

Such, Gilimer, was thy laft prayer
To him, who o'er thy realm his gay host led,

When thou forlorn, and frozen with despair,

Didft fit on Pappua's heights alone,

Mourning thy fortune loft, thy crown, thy kingdom gone.

When 'twas ftill night, and on the mountain vast
The moon her tranquil glimmer cast,

From tent to tent, remotely fpread around,
He heard the murm'ring army's hostile found,
And swell'd from his fad lute a folemn tone,
Whilft the lone vallies echo'd-" All is gone!"

The fun from darkness rose,

Illumining the landscape wide,

The tents, the far-off fhips, and the pale morning tide.
Now the prophetic fong indignant flows.

Thine, Roman, is the victory-
Roman, the wide world is thine-
In every clime the eagles fly,
And the gay fquadron's length'ning line,
That flashes far and near,

It flouting banners, as in fcorn, difplays,

Trump answers trump, to war-horse war-horse neighs.

I fink forfaken here

This rugged rock my empire, and this feat

Of folitude, my glory's last retreat!

Yet boast not thou,

Soldier, the laurels on thy victor brow,

They fhall wither, and thy fate,

Leave thee, like me, defpairing, defolate!

With haggard beard, and bleeding eyes,
The conqueror of Afric lies*—

Where now his glory's crested helm ?

Where now his marshall'd legions thronging bright, His steeds, his trumpets, clanging to the fight, That spread difmay through Perfia's bleeding realm ?

Now fee him poorly led,

Begging in age his scanty bread!
Proud victor, do our fates agree?

Doft thou now REMEMBER ME

Alluding to the supposed miferable state of Belifarius in his old age.

Me, of every hope bereft ;

Me, to fcorn and ruin left?

So may despair thy last lone hours attend !—
That thou too, in thy turn, may'st know,
How doubly fharp the woe-

When from fortune's fummit hurl'd,

We gaze around on all the world,
And find in all the world No friend!

VERSES*

Written, in confequence of the author's being reproached for not weeping over the dead body of a female friend.

BY ANTHONY PASQUIN, Esq.

COLD drops the tear which blazons common woe :

What callous rock retains its chrystal rill?

Ne'er will the foften'd mould its liquid fhow:
Deep fink the waters that are smooth and still !

Ah! when fublimely agoniz'd I stood,

And Memory gave her beauteous frame a figh:
While Feeling triumph'd in my heart's warm flood;
Grief drank the offering ere it reach'd the eye!

*This little inftance of refined fentiment has been tranflated into German, by Klopstock; into Italian, by Count Savelli of Corfica, and inte French, by Count Joseph Augustus De Maccarthy.

REMARKS ON NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Broad Grins; by GEORGE COLMAN, (the younger ;) comprif ing, with New Additional Tales in Verfe, thofe formerly published under the title of "My Night-Gown and Slippers."-Published in London, 1803.-In BOSTON, by Mers. B. and J. Homans, and E. Larkin; January ft. 1804.

WHILE perusing these facetious tales, we were favoured with the following original communication by an English Gentleman, who has been long acquainted with their celebrated author. Its appearance in this place, we think, will be very acceptable to the readers of that pleafing little volume.

GEORGE COLMAN, the fubject of this effay, is the son of George Colman, the celebrated author of the comedies of the Clandestine Marriage; the Jealous Wife; the English Merchant, tranflated from Voltaire; the Deuce is in him; Man and Wife, &c. The elder Colman was many years manager of Covent Garden Theatre, and died at the village of Brompton, near London, in a state of mental debility.

The younger Colman was initiated in the Gradus ad Parnaffum at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, for which place he does not entertain the most dignified fentiments. In his comedy of the POOR GENTLEMAN, he has indulged his spleen against Scotland, at the expense of truth; and in his character of the Hon. Mifs Lucretia Mac Tab, he has made penury and pride the only fovereigns of her bosom.

The younger Colman, as a dramatist, is ranked highly in the present day. His earliest productions, although written fomewhat loosely, indicated how confiderably he would stand in the republic of the Drama, when his judgment was more ripened by experience and ftudy. His gradations of excellence have kept pace with his years; and it appears to the author of this memoir, that the older he grows, the better he writes. His last comedy of JOHN BULL, or an Englifhman's Firefide, comprehends more wit and philanthropy, in the dialogue and incidents, Vol. I. No. 2.

M

90

than any other play, that has been produced for many years;
and the public award has juftified this idea, as it was not merely
received with applause, but with enthusiasm. But in this, as well
as in his drama of the IRON CHEST, he has been indebted for its
bafis and ground work to a contemporary, as the plot of John
Bull is evidently borrowed from Anthony Pafquin's fory of Col.
Bellingham and Tim Kelty, in his life of Edwin the Comedian. This
dramatist has been accused of plagiarisms, and the accufation is
true; yet notwithstanding that, he is an author of brilliant and
uncommon talents. He can enforce the best purposes of the
heart, with an addrefs, that is almoft peculiar to himself, and in-
fufes fuch a spirit of wit in his fcenic perfonages, as renders his
productions almoft as pleafant to perufe, as to fee represented.

This gentleman is the prefent Manager of the HAYMARKET-
THEATRE, where he has established a company, who are entirely
independent of the winter Theatres of that metropolis: yet he
feldom produces a piece of his own, on his own ground, but pru-
dently relies on the unprecedented ftrength of the exifting com-
ic company of COVENT GARDEN THEATRE, where our favourite
BERNARD once flourished, and which can now proudly exhibit
the names of Kemble, Cooke, Munden, Fawcet, Emery, Blan-
chard, Incledon, Hill, Darley, C. Kemble, Farley, Rock, and
the matchlefs Braham. In their catalogue of ladies they poffefs
a Siddons, De Camp, Storace, Glover, Mattocks, H. Siddons,
Davenport, &c.; each being equal to her peculiar department,
and forming, in the whole, a combination of hiftrionic excel-
lence, that has perhaps never been furpaffed.

Mr. Colman has recently published a volume of Tales, writ
ten in Pindaric verfe, called Broad Grins, a part of which has
been formerly published under the title of "My Night-Gown
and Slippers." Among the additional tales, that of the Knight
and Friar is taken from the ancient hiftory of the Monafteries
of England; printed in black letter, and is there recorded as a
Of the others, one is borrowed, and the Elder
literal fact.
Brother appears to be newly invented; but they both, however,
poffefs confiderable merit.

Thefe TALES are allowed by European Critics to abound with
broad and firong humour. The author appears to have taken