For she was just, and friend to virtuous lore,
And passed much time in truly virtuous deed;
And in those elfins' ears would oft deplore
The times when truth by popish rage did bleed,
And tortuous death was true devotion's meed;
And simple faith in iron chains did mourn,
That nould on wooden image place her creed;
And lawny saints in smouldering flames did burn :

Ah, dearest Lord, forefend thilk days should e'er return!

In elbow-chair, like that of Scottish stem,
By the sharp tooth of cankering eld defaced,
In which, when he receives his diadem,
Our sovereign prince and liefest liege is placed,
The matron sat; and some with rank she graced
(The source of children's and of courtiers' pride!),
Redressed affronts-for vile affronts there passed;
And warned them not the fretful to deride,
But love each other dear, whatever them betide.
Right well she knew each temper to descry,
To thwart the proud, and the submiss to raise ;
Some with vile copper prize exalt on high,
And some entice with pittance small of praise;
And other some with baleful sprig she 'frays:
Even absent, she the reins of power doth hold,
While with quaint arts the giddy crowd she sways;
Forewarned, if little bird their pranks behold,
Twill whisper in her ear, and all the scene unfold.
Lo! now with state she utters her command;
Eftsoons the urchins to their tasks repair,
Their books of stature small they take in hand,
Which with pellucid horn secured are,
To save from finger wet the letters fair :
The work so gay that on their back is seen,

St George's high achievements does declare;

On which thilk wight that has y-gazing been, Kens the forthcoming rod, unpleasing sight, I ween! The four extracts which follow are from A Pastoral Ballad (1743):

Absence.

Ye shepherds, so cheerful and gay,
Whose flocks never carelessly roam;
Should Corydon's happen to stray,
Oh call the poor wanderers home.
Allow me to muse and to sigh,

Nor talk of the change that ye find;
None once was so watchful as I;

I have left my dear Phillis behind.
Now I know what it is to have strove
With the torture of doubt and desire;
What it is to admire and to love,

And to leave her we love and admire.
Ah lead forth my flock in the morn,
And the damps of each evening repel;
Alas! I am faint and forlorn-

I have bade my dear Phillis farewell.
Since Phillis vouchsafed me a look,
I never once dreamt of my vine;
May I lose both my pipe and my crook,
If I knew of a kid that was mine.

I prized every hour that went by,
Beyond all that had pleased me before;

But now they are past, and I sigh,

And I grieve that I prized them no more. . . .

When forced the fair nymph to forego,
What anguish I felt at my heart!
Yet I thought-but it might not be so-
'Twas with pain that she saw me depart.
She gazed as I slowly withdrew,
My path I could hardly discern ;
So sweetly she bade me adieu,

I thought that she bade me return.

The pilgrim that journeys all day
To visit some far-distant shrine,
If he bear but a relic away,

Is happy, nor heard to repine.
Thus widely removed from the fair,
Where my vows, my devotion, I owe;
Soft hope is the relic I bear,
And my solace wherever I go.

Hope.

My banks they are furnished with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep;
My grottoes are shaded with trees,
And my hills are white over with sheep.
I seldom have met with a loss,
Such health do my fountains bestow;
My fountains, all bordered with moss,
Where the harebells and violets grow.
Not a pine in my grove is there seen,
But with tendrils of woodbine is bound;
Not a beech's more beautiful green,

But a sweetbriar entwines it around.
Not my fields in the prime of the year
More charms than my cattle unfold;
Not a brook that is limpid and clear,
But it glitters with fishes of gold.
One would think she might like to retire
To the bower I have laboured to rear;
Not a shrub that I heard her admire,
But I hasted and planted it there.
O how sudden the jessamine strove
With the lilac to render it gay!
Already it calls for my love

To prune the wild branches away.

From the plains, from the woodlands, and groves,
What strains of wild melody flow!
How the nightingales warble their loves,
From thickets of roses that blow!
And when her bright form shall appear,
Each bird shall harmoniously join

In a concert so soft and so clear,

As she may not be fond to resign.

I have found out a gift for my fair,

I have found where the wood-pigeons breed ;

But let me that plunder forbear,

She will say, 'twas a barbarous deed. For he ne'er could be true, she averred,

Who could rob a poor bird of his young; And I loved her the more when I heard Such tenderness fall from her tongue.

Solicitude.

Why will you my passion reprove?
Why term it a folly to grieve?

Ere I shew you the charms of my love :
She is fairer than you can believe.

With her mien she enamours the brave,
With her wit she engages the free,
With her modesty pleases the grave;
She is every way pleasing to me.

O you that have been of her train,

Come and join in my amorous lays; I could lay down my life for the swain,

That will sing but a song in her praise. When he sings, may the nymphs of the town Come trooping, and listen the while; Nay, on him let not Phyllida frown, But I cannot allow her to smile.

For when Paridel tries in the dance
Any favour with Phyllis to find,
O how, with one trivial glance,
Might she ruin the peace of my mind!
In ringlets he dresses his hair,

And his crook is bestudded around; And his pipe-O my Phyllis, beware Of a magic there is in the sound. 'Tis his with mock passion to glow, "Tis his in smooth tales to unfold 'How her face is as bright as the snow, And her bosom, be sure, is as cold. How the nightingales labour the strain, With the notes of his charmer to vie; How they vary their accents in vain, Repine at her triumphs and die.' . . .

Jemmy Dawson: A Ballad.
Come listen to my mournful tale,
Ye tender hearts and lovers dear;
Nor will you scorn to heave a sigh,
Nor need you blush to shed a tear.

And thou, dear Kitty, peerless maid,
Do thou a pensive ear incline;
For thou canst weep at every woe,
And pity every plaint but mine.
Young Dawson was a gallant boy,
A brighter never trod the plain;
And well he loved one charming maid,
And dearly was he loved again.

One tender maid she loved him dear,

Of gentle blood the damsel came : And faultless was her beauteous form,

And spotless was her virgin fame.

But curse on party's hateful strife,

That led the favoured youth astray;
The day the rebel clans appeared,
O had he never seen that day!

Their colours and their sash he wore,

And in the fatal dress was found;
And now he must that death endure,
Which gives the brave the keenest wound.
How pale was then his true love's cheek,
When Jemmy's sentence reached her ear?
For neve
ever yet did Alpine snows
So pale or yet so chill appear.

With faltering voice she weeping said:

‘O Dawson, monarch of my heart! Think not thy death shall end our loves, For thou and I will never part.

'Yet might sweet mercy find a place,
And bring relief to Jemmy's woes,
O George! without a prayer for thee
My orisons should never close.

'The gracious prince that gave him life
Would crown a never-dying flame ;
And every tender babe I bore

Should learn to lisp the giver's name.

'But though, dear youth, thou shouldst be dragged
To yonder ignominious tree,
Thou shalt not want a faithful friend
To share the cruel fate's decree.'

O then her mourning-coach was called, The sledge moved slowly on before; Though borne in a triumphal car,

She had not loved her favourite more.

She followed him, prepared to view
The terrible behests of law;
And the last scene of Jemmy's woes
With calm and steadfast eye she saw.

Distorted was that blooming face,
Which she had fondly loved so long;
And stifled was that tuneful breath,
Which in her praise had sweetly sung:

And severed was that beauteous neck,
Round which her arms had fondly closed;
And mangled was that beauteous breast,
On which her love-sick head reposed :
And ravished was that constant heart,
She did to every heart prefer;
For though it could its king forget,
'Twas true and loyal still to her.
Amid those unrelenting flames

She bore this constant heart to see;
But when 'twas mouldered into dust,
'Yet, yet,' she cried, "I follow thee.
'My death, my death alone can show
The pure, the lasting love I bore:
Accept, O Heaven! of woes like ours,
And let us, let us weep no more.'
The dismal scene was o'er and past,
The lover's mournful hearse retired;
The maid drew back her languid head,
And, sighing forth his name, expired.

Though justice ever must prevail,

The tear my Kitty sheds is due ;
For seldom shall she hear a tale

So sad, so tender, and so true.

Captain James Dawson was one of the eight officers of the Manchester volunteers in the service of the Young Chevalier who were hanged, drawn, and quartered on Kennington Common in 1746. The pathetic story is given in vol. xviii. of Howell's State Trials. A pardon was expected, and in that case Dawson was to have been married the same day. His bride-elect followed him to the scaffold. 'She got near enough,' as reported in a letter written at the time, to see the fire kindled which was to consume that heart which she knew was so much devoted to her, and all the other dreadful preparations for his fate, without being guilty of any of these extravagances which her friends had apprehended. But when all was over, and that she found he was no more, she drew her head back into the coach, and crying out: "My dear, I follow thee-I follow thee! Sweet Jesus, receive both our souls together," fell on the neck of her companion, and expired while speaking.'

Written at an Inn at Henley.

To thee, fair Freedom, I retire
From flattery, cards, and dice, and din ;
Nor art thou found in mansions higher
Than the low cot or humble inn.

'Tis here with boundless power I reign,
And every health which I begin
Converts dull port to bright champagne :

Such freedom crowns it at an inn.

I fly from pomp, I fly from plate,
I fly from falsehood's specious grin ;
Freedom I love, and form I hate,

And choose my lodgings at an inn.
Here, waiter! take my sordid ore,
Which lackeys else might hope to win ;
It buys what courts have not in store,
It buys me freedom at an inn.
Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found

The warmest welcome at an inn. Shenstone's Works in Prose and Verse appeared in three volumes in 1764-69, reprinted 1791; Gilfillan's edition of the poems dates from 1854. There is an article on A Forgotten Poet' by Mr R. H. Hutton in the Cornhill for January 1902.

William Whitehead (1715–85) succeeded in 1757 to the laureateship vacated by Colley Cibber, after it had been refused by Gray. He was the son of a baker in Cambridge, and from Winchester School obtained a scholarship at Clare Hall. From 1745 onwards he spent much of his life as tutor in the family of the Earl of Jersey, cherishing literature and writing for the stage. His Roman Father and Creusa were indifferent plays. The Enthusiast, an Ode, states the case between Nature and Society. Variety, a Tale for Married People, is the story of a too devoted couple. (The laureate had no connection with Paul Whitehead, 1710-74, scurrilous satirist and 'kept bard' of the infamous Monks of Medmenham Abbey.')

From 'Variety.'

Two smiling springs had waked the flowers
That paint the meads, or fringe the bowers-
Ye lovers, lend your wondering ears,
Who count by months, and not by years—
Two smiling springs had chaplets wove
To crown their solitude, and love:
When, lo! they find, they can't tell how,
Their walks are not so pleasant. now.

The seasons sure were changed; the place
Had, somehow, got a different face,
Some blast had struck the cheerful scene;
The lawns, the woods were not so green.
The purling rill, which murmured by,
And once was liquid harmony,
Became a sluggish, reedy pool;
The days grew hot, the evenings cool.
The moon, with all the starry reign,
Were melancholy's silent train.
And then the tedious winter-night-
They could not read by candle-light.
Full oft, unknowing why they did,
They called in adventitious aid.
A faithful favourite dog-'twas thus
With Tobit and Telemachus-
Amused their steps; and for a while
They viewed his gambols with a smile.
The kitten, too, was comical,
She played so oddly with her tail,
Or in the glass was pleased to find
Another cat, and peeped behind.

A courteous neighbour at the door,
Was deemed intrusive noise no more.
For rural visits, now and then,
Are right, as men must live with men.
Then cousin Jenny, fresh from town,
A new recruit, a dear delight!
Made many a heavy hour go down,

At morn, at noon, at eve, at night :
Sure they could hear her jokes for ever,
She was so sprightly and so clever!

Yet neighbours were not quite the thingWhat joy, alas! could converse bring With awkward creatures bred at homeThe dog grew dull, or troublesome, The cat had spoiled the kitten's merit, And, with her youth, had lost her spirit. And jokes repeated o'er and o'er, Had quite exhausted Jenny's store.

-' And then, my dear, I can't abide,
This always sauntering side by side.'
'Enough,' he cries; the reason's plain :
For causes never rack your brain.
Our neighbours are like other folks ;
Skip's playful tricks, and Jenny's jokes,
Are still delightful, still would please,
Were we, my dear, ourselves at ease.
Look round, with an impartial eye,
On yonder fields, on yonder sky;
The azure cope, the flowers below,
With all their wonted colours glow;
The rill still murmurs; and the moon
Shines, as she did, a softer sun.

No change has made the seasons fail,
No comet brushed us with his tail.

The scene's the same, the same the weather-
We live, my dear, too much together.'

Agreed. A rich old uncle dies,
And added wealth the means supplies.
With eager haste to town they flew,
Where all must please, for all was new.

Advanced to fashion's wavering head,
They now, where once they followed, led;
Devised new systems of delight,
Abed all day, and up all night,

In different circles reigned supreme;
Wives copied her, and husbands him;
Till so divinely life ran on,
So separate, so quite bon-ton,
That, meeting in a public place,

They scarcely knew each other's face.
At last they met, by his desire,
A tête-à-tête across the fire;
Looked in each other's face a while,
With half a tear, and half a smile.
The ruddy health, which wont to grace
With manly glow his rural face,
Now scarce retained its faintest streak,
So sallow was his leathern cheek.
She, lank and pale, and hollow-eyed,
With rouge had striven in vain to hide
What once was beauty, and repair
The rapine of the midnight air.

Silence is eloquence, 'tis said.

Both wished to speak, both hung the head.
At length it burst. 'Tis time,' he cries,

'When tired of folly, to be wise.

Are you, too, tired?'-then checked a groan. She wept consent, and he went on. . . . "True to the bias of our kind, 'Tis happiness we wish to find. In rural scenes retired we sought In vain the dear, delicious draught, Though blest with love's indulgent store, We found we wanted something more. 'Twas company, 'twas friends to share The bliss we languished to declare; 'Twas social converse, change of scene, To soothe the sullen hour of spleen; Short absences to wake desire, And sweet regrets to fan the fire.

'We left the lonesome place, and found,

In dissipation's giddy round,

A thousand novelties to wake

The springs of life, and not to break.

As, from the nest not wandering far,
In light excursions through the air,
The feathered tenants of the grove
Around in mazy circles move,

Sip the cool springs that murmuring flow,
Or taste the blossom on the bough;
We sported freely with the rest;
And still, returning to the nest,
In easy mirth we chatter'd o'er
The trifles of the day before.

'Behold us now, dissolving quite
In the full ocean of delight;
In pleasures every hour employ,
Immersed in all the world calls joy;
Our affluence easing the expense
Of splendour and magnificence;
Our company, the exalted set

Of all that 's gay, and all that's great:
Nor happy yet! and where's the wonder!
We live, my dear, too much asunder!'
The moral of my tale is this:
Variety 's the soul of bliss ;

But such variety alone

As makes our home the more our own.
As from the heart's impelling power
The life-blood pours its genial store;
Though taking each a various way,
The active streams meandering play
Through every artery, every vein,
All to the heart return again;
From thence resume their new career,
But still return and centre there;

So real happiness below

Must from the heart sincerely flow;
Nor, listening to the siren's song,
Must stray too far, or rest too long.
All human pleasures thither tend;
Must there begin, and there must end;
Must there recruit their languid force,
And gain fresh vigour from their source.

James Harris of Salisbury (1709-80) was a man of rank and fortune; he was educated at Wadham, Oxford, sat several years in Parliament, and was successively a Lord of the Admiralty and Lord of the Treasury.

In 1774 he was made secretary and comptroller to the queen, and these posts he held till his death in 1780. In 1744 he published three treatises on art, on music and painting, and on happiness; and in 1751 produced his celebrated Hermes, or a Philosophical Inquiry concerning Universal Grammar. The work is an elaborate attempt to discover the inevitable basis of all grammatical forms from an analysis of the thoughts to be conveyed. The method is impossible, and the results false and useless; but Harris's varied learning and ingenuity enabled him to produce a curious and interesting book. He clung to Aristotle in the reign of Locke, and his Philosophical Arrangements (1775) treats modern problems by Aristotelian methods. Philological Inquiries (1781), the least tedious of his works, is on style and literary criticism. His son, Lord Malmesbury, published in 1801 a complete edition of his works in two quarto volumes.

71

Thomas Gray was born at Cornhill in London, 26th December 1716. His father, Philip Gray (a money-scrivener, like Milton's father), was a 'respectable citizen,' but a man of harsh and violent disposition. His wife was forced to separate from him; and it was to her exertions as partner with her sister in a millinery business that the poet owed the advantages of a learned education, first at Eton and afterwards at Peterhouse, Cambridge. The painful domestic circumstances of his youth doubtless helped to develop the melancholy traceable in his poetry. At Eton he had made the friendship of Horace Walpole, son of the Prime Minister; and when his college education was completed, Walpole carried him off as companion on a tour through France and Italy. They had been two years and a half together, exploring the natural beauties, antiquities, and picture-galleries of Florence, Rome, and Naples, when a quarrel took place at Reggio, and the travellers separated, Gray returning to England. Walpole took the blame of this difference on himself, as he was vain and volatile, and not disposed to trust in the better knowledge or fall in with the somewhat fastidious tastes and habits of his associate; and by his repentant efforts the breach was healed within three years. Gray went to Cambridge to take his degree in civil law, but without intending to follow up the profession. His father had died, his mother's means were small, and the poet was more intent on learning than on riches. He made his home in Cambridge, and amidst its noble libraries and learned society passed the greater part of his remaining life. Heartily hating mathematics, he was ardently devoted to classical learning, belleslettres, architecture, antiquities, heraldry, and natural history (especially botany and entomology); he rejoiced in voyages, travels, and books on geography, and showed good taste in painting, music, and gardening. His friend Temple said he 'was perhaps the most learned man in Europe;' and his chief relaxation was sought in pleasant company and in writing letters-letters such as only that age could produce. This retired life was varied by occasional residence in London, where he revelled among the treasures of the British Museum; and by frequent excursions to the country on visits to learned and attached friends. At Cambridge, Gray was considered an unduly fastidious man, and this and the fact that he had a nervous horror of fire gave occasion to practical jokes being played on him by his fellow-inmates of Peterhouse. One of these-a false alarm of fire, by which he was induced to climb down from his window to the ground by a rope-so annoyed him that he moved (1756) to Pembroke Hall. In 1765 he made a journey into Scotland, and met Beattie at Glamis Castle. Wales too he visited, and Cumberland and Westmorland, for the lakes' sake. His letters describing

these excursions are remarkable for their grace, acute observation, and dry scholastic humour, as well as for insight into the picturesque and a joy in mountain scenery till then extremely rare-though John Brown (see page 392) and 'Jupiter' Carlyle still earlier visited the Lakes as 'celebrated.' Mackintosh said Gray 'was the first discoverer of the beauties of nature in England.' After these unexciting holidays Gray re-established himself in his college retreat-pored over his favourite authors, compiled tables of chronology or botany, moralised 'on all he felt and all he saw' in correspondence with his friends, and occasionally ventured into the realms of poetry and imagination. He had studied the Greek poets with such devotion and care that their spirit informed all his work.

Gray's first public appearance as a poet was made in 1747, when his Ode to Eton College was published by Dodsley; it had, however, been written in 1742, as also the Ode to Spring. In 1751 his Elegy written in a Country Churchyard secured an enthusiastic hearing. His Pindaric Odes, written in 1750-57, met with small success; but his name was now so well known that he was offered the laureateship (1757), vacant by the death of Colley Cibber. This he declined; but in 1768 he accepted the more important post of Professor of Modern History, which brought him in about £400 per annum. In 1760-61 he devoted himself to early English poetry; later he studied Icelandic and Celtic poetry, which bore fruit in his Eddaic poems, The Fatal Sisters and The Descent of Odin -authentic precursors of Romanticism. For some years he had been subject to hereditary gout as well as to depression of spirits, and as his circumstances improved his health declined. While at dinner one day in the college-hall he was seized with severe illness, and after six days of suffering he died on the 30th of July 1771. By his own wish he was buried by the side of his mother at Stoke Poges near Windsor, and thus another poetic association was added to that beautiful scene of the Elegy. His epitaph on his mother has an interesting touch of his peculiar melancholy: 'Dorothy Gray, widow, the careful, tender mother of many children, one of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her.'

The poetry of Gray is all comprised in a few pages-surprisingly few; yet he was very soon accounted worthy to rank in the first order of poets, to be reverenced as one of the dii majores of English poetry. He still stands in the front rank of the second order. His two great odes, the Progress of Poesy and The Bard, published in 1757, are amongst the finest things we have in the socalled Pindaric style; his stanzas, in their varied versification, flow with lyrical ease and perfect harmony. Gray said of his own verse that the 'style he aimed at was extreme conciseness of expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical ;' and it has been generally agreed that he attained his ambition, especially in lyrical work such as