A sound in air presaged approaching rain,
And beasts to covert scud across the plain.
Warned by the signs, the wandering pair retreat
To seek for shelter at a neighbouring seat.
'Twas built with turrets, on a rising ground,
And strong, and large, and unimproved around;
Its owner's temper, timorous and severe,
Unkind and griping, caused a desert there.
As near the miser's heavy doors they drew,
Fierce rising gusts with sudden fury blew ;
The nimble lightning, mixed with showers, began,
And o'er their heads loud rolling thunder ran;
Here long they knock, but knock or call in vain,
Driven by the wind, and battered by the rain.
At length some pity warmed the master's breast
('Twas then his threshold first received a guest),
Slow creaking turns the door with jealous care,
And half he welcomes in the shivering pair;
One frugal faggot lights the naked walls,
And Nature's fervour through their limbs recalls;
Bread of the coarsest sort, with eager wine,
Each hardly granted, served them both to dine;
And when the tempest first appeared to cease,
A ready warning bid them part in peace.
With still remark, the pondering hermit viewed,
In one so rich, a life so poor and rude;
And why should such, within himself he cried,
Lock the lost wealth a thousand want beside?
But what new marks of wonder soon take place
In every settling feature of his face,
When, from his vest, the young companion bore
That cup the generous landlord owned before,
And paid profusely with the precious bowl,
The stinted kindness of this churlish soul !
But now the clouds in airy tumult fly;

The sun emerging opes an azure sky;

A fresher green the smelling leaves display,
And, glittering as they tremble, cheer the day:

The weather courts them from their poor retreat,
And the glad master bolts the weary gate.
While hence they walk, the pilgrim's bosom wrought
With all the travail of uncertain thought:
His partner's acts without their cause appear;
'Twas there a vice, and seemed a madness here:
Detesting that, and pitying this, he goes,
Lost and confounded with the various shows.
Now night's dim shades again involve the sky;
Again the wanderers want a place to lie ;
Again they search, and find a lodging nigh.
The soil improved around, the mansion neat,
And neither poorly low, nor idly great;
It seemed to speak its master's turn of mind,
Content, and not for praise, but virtue, kind.
Hither the walkers turn their weary feet,
Then bless the mansion, and the master greet.
Their greeting fair, bestowed with modest guise,
The courteous master hears, and thus replies:

'Without a vain, without a grudging heart,
To him who gives us all, I yield a part;
From him you come, for him accept it here,
A frank and sober, more than costly cheer!'
He spoke, and bid the welcome table spread,
Then talked of virtue till the time of bed;
When the grave household round his hall repair,
Warned by a bell, and close the hour with prayer.
At length the world, renewed by calm repose,

Was strong for toil, the dappled morn arose.
Before the pilgrims part, the younger crept
Near a closed cradle where an infant slept,
And writhed his neck the landlord's little pride,
O strange return! grew black, and gasped, and died!
Horror of horrors! what! his only son!

How looked our hermit when the fact was done!
Not hell, though hell's black jaws in sunder part
And breathe blue fire, could more assault his heart.
Confused, and struck with silence at the deed,
He flies, but trembling, fails to fly with speed.
His steps the youth pursues: the country lay
Perplexed with roads; a servant shewed the way:
A river crossed the path; the passage o'er
Was nice to find; the servant trod before :
Long arms of oaks an open bridge supplied,
And deep the waves beneath them bending glide.
The youth, who seemed to watch a time to sin,
Approached the careless guide, and thrust him in;
Plunging he falls, and rising, lifts his head,
Then flashing turns, and sinks among the dead.

While sparkling rage inflames the father's eyes,
He bursts the bands of fear, and madly cries:
'Detested wretch !'-but scarce his speech began,
When the strange partner seemed no longer man.
His youthful face grew more serenely sweet;
His robe turned white, and flowed upon his feet;
Fair rounds of radiant points invest his hair;
Celestial odours breathe through purpled air;
And wings, whose colours glittered on the day,
Wide at his back their gradual plumes display.
The form ethereal bursts upon his sight,
And moves in all the majesty of light.
Though loud at first the pilgrim's passion grew,
Sudden he gazed, and wist not what to do;
Surprise, in secret chains, his words suspends,
And in a calm, his settling temper ends;
But silence here the beauteous angel broke-
The voice of music ravished as he spoke :
'Thy prayer, thy praise, thy life to vice unknown,
In sweet memorial rise before the throne:
These charms success in our bright region find,
And force an angel down, to calm thy mind;
For this commissioned, I forsook the sky :
Nay, cease to kneel-thy fellow-servant I.
Then know the truth of government divine,
And let these scruples be no longer thine.
The Maker justly claims that world he made;
In this the right of Providence is laid;
Its sacred majesty through all depends
On using second means to work his ends :
'Tis thus, withdrawn in state from human eye,
The power exerts his attributes on high;
Your action uses, nor controls your will,
And bids the doubting sons of men be still.
What strange events can strike with more surprise,
Than those which lately struck thy wondering eyes?
Yet, taught by these, confess the Almighty just,
And, where you can't unriddle, learn to trust.
The great vain man, who fared on costly food,
Whose life was too luxurious to be good;
Who made his ivory stands with goblets shine,
And forced his guests to morning draughts of wine,
Has with the cup the graceless custom lost,
And still he welcomes, but with less of cost.
The mean, suspicious wretch, whose bolted door

Ne'er moved in pity to the wandering poor ;
With him I left the cup, to teach his mind
That Heaven can bless, if mortals will be kind.
Conscious of wanting worth, he views the bowl,
And feels compassion touch his grateful soul.
Thus artists melt the sullen ore of lead,
With heaping coals of fire upon its head;

In the kind warmth the metal learns to glow,
And, loose from dross, the silver runs below.
Long had our pious friend in virtue trod,

But now the child half-weaned his heart from God;
Child of his age, for him he lived in pain,
And measured back his steps to earth again.

To what excesses had this dotage run!

But God to save the father took the son.
To all but thee, in fits he seemed to go,
And 'twas my ministry to deal the blow.
The poor fond parent, humbled in the dust,
Now owns in tears the punishment was just.
But how had all his fortunes felt a wrack
Had that false servant sped in safety back!
This night his treasured heaps he meant to steal,
And what a fund of charity would fail !
Thus Heaven instructs thy mind: this trial o'er,
Depart in peace, resign, and sin no more.'

On sounding pinions here the youth withdrew,
The sage stood wondering as the seraph flew;
Thus looked Elisha when, to mount on high,
His master took the chariot of the sky;
The fiery pomp ascending left the view;
The prophet gazed, and wished to follow too.

The bending Hermit here a prayer begun :
'Lord, as in heaven, on earth thy will be done.'
Then gladly turning, sought his ancient place,
And passed a life of piety and peace.

time with Pope. Addison and the Whigs were rumoured to have pronounced it the better version of the two, while the Tories ranged under the banner of Pope; and hence originally came about the famous quarrel between Pope and Addison. Gay told Pope that Steele said Addison had called Tickell's work the best translation that ever was in any language. Pope professed to believe Tickell's translation as really by Addison, designed to eclipse his, and wrote the satire on 'Atticus;' and so sputtered on the feud, which was never quenched. Addison continued his patronage of Tickell; when made Secretary of State in 1717, he appointed his friend Under-Secretary, and further left him the charge of publishing his works. Tickell seems to have held himself at liberty to make occasional alterations in Addison's words; and to his edition -long the standard one-of Addison's collected works he prefixed an elegy on his friendly patron, which was justly reckoned his best poem and one of the best things of the kind. He wrote a number of addresses, epistles, odes, and occasional poems. His ballad of Colin and Lucy was Both rendered into Latin by Vincent Bourne. Gray and Goldsmith pronounced Colin and Lucy one of the best ballads in the language; though Gray thought Tickell a poor, short - winded imitator of Addison,' with but three or four notes of his own, sweet but tiresomely repeated. In 1722 Tickell published a poem, chiefly allegorical, entitled Kensington Gardens; but having been in 1724 appointed secretary to the Lords- Justices of Ireland, he seems to have abandoned the Muses. He died at Bath in 1740, and was buried at Glasnevin near Dublin, where he had his home. The memorial tablet in Glasnevin Church records that his highest honour was that of having been the friend of Addison.' The elegy and Colin and Lucy would have served to perpetuate his name; even Pope admitted that he was an 'honest man.'

From the Elegy on Addison. Can I forget the dismal night that gave My soul's best part for ever to the grave? How silent did his old companions tread, By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead, Through breathing statues, then unheeded things, Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings! What awe did the slow solemn knell inspire; The pealing organ, and the pausing choir; The duties by the lawn-robed prelate paid : And the last words, that dust to dust conveyed! While speechless o'er thy closing grave we bend, Accept these tears, thou dear departed friend. Oh, gone for ever! take this long adieu; And sleep in peace next thy loved Montague. To strew fresh laurels, let the task be mine, A frequent pilgrim at thy sacred shrine ; Mine with true sighs thy absence to bemoan, And grave with faithful epitaphs thy stone. If e'er from me thy loved memorial part, May shame afflict this alienated heart; Of thee forgetful if I form a song,

My lyre be broken, and untuned my tongue, My griefs be doubled from thy image free, And mirth a torment, unchastised by thee!

Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone,
Sad luxury to vulgar minds unknown,
Along the walls where speaking marbles shew
What worthies form the hallowed mould below;
Proud names, who once the reins of empire held ;
In arms who triumphed, or in arts excelled;
Chiefs graced with scars and prodigal of blood ;
Stern patriots who for sacred freedom stood;
Just men by whom impartial laws were given;
And saints who taught and led the way to heaven;
Ne'er to these chambers, where the mighty rest,
Since their foundation came a nobler guest;
Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed
A fairer spirit or more welcome shade.

In what new region to the just assigned,
What new employments please th' unbodied mind?
A winged virtue, through th' ethereal sky
From world to world unwearied does he fly?
Or curious trace the long laborious maze

Of heaven's decrees, where wondering angels gaze?
Does he delight to hear bold seraphs tell
How Michael battled, and the dragon fell;
Or, mixed with milder cherubim, to glow
In hymns of love, not ill essayed below?
Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind,
A task well suited to thy gentle mind?
Oh if sometimes thy spotless form descend,
To me thy aid, thou guardian genius, lend!
When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms,
When pain distresses or when pleasure charms,
In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart,
And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart:
Led through the paths thy virtue trod before,
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more.
That awful form which, so the heavens decree,
Must still be loved and still deplored by me,
In nightly visions seldom fails to rise,
Or, roused by fancy, meets my waking eyes.
If business calls or crowded courts invite,

Th' unblemished statesman seems to strike my sight;

If in the stage I seek to soothe my care,

I meet his soul which breathes in Cato there ;

If pensive to the rural shades I rove,
His shape o'ertakes me in the lonely grove;
'Twas there of just and good he reasoned strong,
Cleared some great truth, or raised some serious song:
There patient shewed us the wise course to steer,
A candid censor, and a friend severe;
There taught us how to live, and (oh! too high
The price for knowledge) taught us how to die.
Thou hill whose brow the antique structures grace,
Reared by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race,
Why, once so loved, whene'er thy bower appears,
O'er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears?
How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair,
Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air!
How sweet the glooms beneath thy aged trees,
Thy noontide shadow, and thy evening breeze!
His image thy forsaken bowers restore ;
Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more;
No more the summer in thy glooms allayed,
Thy evening breezes, and thy noonday shade.

...

(To the Earl of Warwick on the Death of Mr Addison.')

Colin and Lucy.

Of Leinster, famed for maidens fair,
Bright Lucy was the grace,
Nor e'er did Liffey's limpid stream
Reflect so sweet a face;

Till luckless love and pining care

Impaired her rosy hue,

Her coral lips and damask cheeks,
And eyes of glossy blue.

Oh! have you seen a lily pale

When beating rains descend?
So drooped the slow-consuming maid,
Her life now near its end.
By Lucy warned, of flattering swains
Take heed, ye easy fair!
Of vengeance due to broken vows,
Ye perjured swains, beware.

Three times all in the dead of night
A bell was heard to ring,
And shrieking, at her window thrice
The raven flapped his wing.
Too well the love-lorn maiden knew
The solemn boding sound,
And thus in dying words bespoke
The virgins weeping round :

'I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says I must not stay;

I see a hand you cannot see,

Which beckons me away.
By a false heart and broken vows
In early youth I die.
Was I to blame because his bride
Was thrice as rich as I?

Ah, Colin! give not her thy vows,
Vows due to me alone;

Nor thou, fond maid! receive his kiss,
Nor think him all thy own.
To-morrow in the church to wed,

Impatient both prepare ;

But know, fond maid, and know, false man, That Lucy will be there.

'Then bear my corpse, my comrades, bear, This bridegroom blithe to meet ;

He in his wedding trim so gay,

I in my winding-sheet.'

She spoke, she died, her corse was borne
The bridegroom blithe to meet ;

He in his wedding trim so gay,
She in her winding-sheet.

Then what were perjured Colin's thoughts?
How were these nuptials kept?
The bridesmen flocked round Lucy dead,
And all the village wept.
Confusion, shame, remorse, despair,

At once his bosom swell;

The damps of death bedewed his brow;
He shook, he groaned, he fell.

From the vain bride, ah, bride no more!
The varying crimson fled,
When stretched before her rival's corse
She saw her husband dead.

Then to his Lucy's new-made grave

Conveyed by trembling swains,
One mould with her, beneath one sod,
For ever he remains.

Oft at this grave the constant hind
And plighted maid are seen;
With garlands gay and true-love knots
They deck the sacred green.

But, swain forsworn, whoe'er thou art,
This hallowed spot forbear;
Remember Colin's dreadful fate,

And fear to meet him there.

Tickell's satire, 'imitated' from Horace (Odes iii. 25, on the Jacobite Earl of Mar and his rash enterprise in 1715, shows a stronger and freer hand than the bulk of his verses.

An Imitation of the Prophecy of Nereus.
As Mar his round one morning took
(Whom some call earl, and some call duke),
And his new brethren of the blade,
Shivering with fear and frost, surveyed,
On Perth's bleak hills he chanced to spy
An aged wizard six foot high,

With bristled hair and visage blighted,
Wall-eyed, bare haunched, and second-sighted.
The grisly sage in thought profound
Beheld the chief with back so round,
Then rolled his eyeballs to and fro
O'er his paternal hills of snow,
And into these tremendous speeches

Broke forth the prophet without breeches :
Into what ills betrayed by thee
This ancient kingdom do I see !
Her realms unpeopled and forlorn—
Wae's me that ever thou wert born!
Proud English loons (our clans o'ercome)
On Scottish pads shall amble home;
I see them dressed in bonnet blue
(The spoils of thy rebellious crew),
I see the target cast away,

And checkered plaid become their prey-
The checkered plaid to make a gown
For many a lass in London town.

'In vain the hungry mountaineers
Come forth in all their warlike gears,
The shield, the pistol, dirk, and dagger,
In which they daily wont to swagger,
And oft have sallied out to pillage
The hon-roosts of some peaceful village;
Or while their neighbours were asleep,
Have carried off a Lowland sheep.

'What boots thy high-born host of beggars,
Mac-leans, Mac-kenzies, and Mac-gregors,
With popish cut-throats, perjured ruffians,
And Foster's troop of raggamuffins.

'In vain thy lads around thee bandy
Inflamed with bagpipe and with brandy;
Doth not bold Sutherland the trusty,
With heart so true, and voice so rusty,
(A loyal soul,) thy troops affright
While hoarsely he demands the fight?
Dost thou not generous Ilay dread,
The bravest hand, the wisest head;
Undaunted dost thou hear th' alarms
Of hoary Athol sheathed in arms?

'Douglas, who draws his lineage down
From thanes and peers of high renown,
Fiery and young, and uncontrouled,
With knights and squires and barons bold
(His noble household band), advances,
And on his milk-white courser prances.
Thee Forfar to the combat dares,
Grown swarthy in Iberian wars;
And Monro kindled into rage,
Sourly defies thee to engage;

He'll rout thy foot, though ne'er so many,
And horse to boot-if thou hadst any.

'But see, Argyll, with watchful eyes,
Lodged in his deep intrenchments lies;
Couched like a lion in thy way,

He waits to spring upon his prey ;
While like a herd of timorous deer,
Thy army shakes and pants with fear,
Led by their doughty general's skill
From frith to frith, from hill to hill.

'Is this thy haughty promise paid
That to the Chevalier was made,
When thou didst oaths and duty barter
For dukedom, generalship and garter?
Three moons thy Jemmy shall command,
With Highland sceptre in his hand,
Too good for his pretended birth,
-Then down shall fall the King of Perth!
"Tis so decreed, for George shall reign,
And traitors be forsworn in vain.
Heaven shall for ever on him smile,
And bless him still with an Argyll ;
While thou pursued by vengeful foes,
Condemned to barren rocks and snows,
And hindered passing Inverlocky,

Shall burn the clan, and curse poor Jocky!'

John, Earl of Mar-here 'Jocky,' with which Inverlochy is forced into rhyme-was nicknamed 'Bobbing Joan.' The estimates of the loyal leaders have not all been confirmed by history.

The Countess of Winchilsea, who died in 1720 aged about sixty, was regarded by Wordsworth as eminently meritorious in at least one respect. It is remarkable,' he says, 'that excepting the Nocturnal Reverie, and a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, the poetry of the period intervening between the publication of Paradise Lost and the Seasons does not contain a single new image of external nature.' Even if we do not accept this all but universal (and uncomplimentary) negative, a poem so honoured by contrast has a special interest in the history of criticism. The Nocturnal Reverie was written by Anne, daughter of Sir William Kingsmill of Kidminton near Southampton, and wife of the second Earl of Winchilsea. She was a friend of Pope and Rowe, and wrote, somewhat in Cowley's manner, one longish poem, The Spleen, which she called 'a Pindarique Ode' (1701; Matthew Green's Hudibrastic verses under that name are better known), and a volume of Miscellany Poems (1713). A line in The Spleen, 'We faint beneath the aromatic pain,' was borrowed by Pope for a familiar passage in his Essay on Man.

A Nocturnal Reverie.

In such a night, when every louder wind
Is to its distant cavern safe confined,
And only gentle zephyr fans his wings,
And lonely Philomel still waking sings;
Or from some tree, famed for the owl's delight,
She, holloaing clear, directs the wanderer right:
In such a night, when passing clouds give place,
Or thinly veil the heaven's mysterious face;
When in some river overhung with green,
The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen ;
When freshened grass now bears itself upright,
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite,
Whence springs the woodbine, and the bramble rose,
And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows;
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet checkers still with red the dusky brakes;
When scattered glowworms, but in twilight fine,
Shew trivial beauties, watch their hour to shine;
Whilst Salisbury stands the test of every light,
In perfect charms and perfect virtue bright :
When odours which declined repelling day,
Through temperate air uninterrupted stray;
When darkened groves their softest shadows wear,
And falling waters we distinctly hear;

When through the gloom more venerable shews
Some ancient fabrick, awful in repose;
While sunburnt hills their swarthy looks conceal,
And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale:
When the loosed horse now, as his pasture leads,
Comes slowly grazing through the adjoining meads,
Whose stealing pace and lengthened shade we fear,
Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear;
When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food,
And unmolested kine rechew the cud;
When curlews cry beneath the village walls,
And to her straggling brood the partridge calls;
Their short-lived jubilee the creatures keep,
Which but endures whilst tyrant man does sleep;
When a sedate content the spirit feels,
And no fierce light disturbs, whilst it reveals ;
But silent musings urge the mind to seek
Something too high for syllables to speak;
Till the free soul to a composedness charmed,
Finding the elements of rage disarmed,
O'er all below a solemn quiet grown,
Joys in the inferiour world, and thinks it like her own:
In such a night let me abroad remain,

Till morning breaks, and all's confused again;
Our cares, our toils, our clamours are renewed,
Or pleasures, seldom reached, again pursued.

A Song.

Love, thou art best of human joys,
Our chiefest happiness below;

All other pleasures are but toys,
Music without thee is but noise,

And beauty but an empty show.

Heaven, who knew best what man would move
And raise his thoughts above the brute,
Said, Let him be, and let him love;
That must alone his soul improve,

Howe'er philosophers dispute.

A collected edition of the Countess's works, including an unacted tragedy, Aristomenes, was published in 1713.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762), united as few men or women have done solid sense and learning to wit, fancy, and lively powers of description; in letter-writing she has very few equals, and scarcely a superior. Horace Walpole may be more witty and sarcastic, and Cowper more unaffectedly natural, tender, and delightful; yet if we consider the variety and novelty of the matters described in Lady Mary's letters, the fund of anecdote and observation they display, and the idiomatic clearness of her style, we shall hesitate to place her below any letter-writer that England has yet produced. She was the eldest daughter of Evelyn Pierrepont, who became next year fifth Earl, and in 1715 Duke, of Kingston, and was brought up at Thoresby, Notts. Even in childhood she showed exceptional gifts, was very carefully educated, and from her youth up was a close student and indefatigable reader. Bishop Burnet encouraged her in her unusually wide course of study, which included Greck philosophy in Latin translations. In 1712 she married against her father's wishes - Edward Wortley (later Wortley Montagu), and on his being appointed in 1714 a commissioner of the Treasury, she was introduced to the courtly and polished circles. Her personal beauty and the

the

charms of her conversation secured the friendship of Addison, Congreve, Pope, and literati. In 1716 her husband was appointed ambassador to the Porte, and Lady Mary accompanied him to Constantinople (1717-18), going by way of Vienna, and returning by Tunis, Genoa, and Paris. During her journey and her residence in the Levant, she corresponded with her sister the Countess of Mar, Lady Rich, Pope, and others, brilliantly describing and contrasting European and Turkish scenery and manners. Having noted among the villagers in Turkey the results of inoculating for the smallpox, she confidently submitted her own son, at that time four years old, to this protective method, then practically unknown to European medical art; and by her zealous effort afterwards established the practice of inoculation in England and in Europe. In 1718, her husband being recalled from his embassy, she returned to England, and, by Pope's advice, settled at Twickenham. The rival wits did not long continue friends. Pope wrote high-flown panegyrics and half-concealed love-letters to Lady Mary, and she treated them with silence or ridicule. On one occasion he is said to have made a tender and formal declaration, which threw the lady into an immoderate fit of laughter; henceforth the sensitive poet became her implacable enemy. Lady Mary also wrote verses, town eclogues, and epigrams, and Pope confessed that she had too much wit for him. The cool self-possession of the lady of rank and fashion, joined to her sarcastic powers, proved an overmatch for the jealous retired author, tremblingly alive to the shafts of ridicule. In 1739, for reasons unknown, Lady