Desponding, sick, exhausted with my grief,
Awhile the founts of sorrow cease to flow,
in vain I rest, and sleep brings no relief;
Cheerless, companionless, I wake to woe.
Nor birth, nor beauty, shall again allure,
Nor fortune win me to another bride;
Alone I'll wander, and alone endure,

Till death restore me to my dear one's side.

Once every thought and every scene was gay,
Friends, mirth, and music, all my soul enjoyed;
Now doom'd to mourn my last.sad years away;
My life a solitude, my heart a void.

Alas! the change, to change again no more,
For every comfort is with Mary fled;
And ceaseless anguish shall her loss deplore,
Till age and sorrow join me with the dead.

Adieu! each gift of nature and of art,

That erst adorn'd me in life's earliest prime;
The cloudless temper and the social heart,

The soul ethereal, and the flight sublime.
Thy loss, my Mary, chas'd them from my breast!
Thy sweetness cheers, thy judgment aids no mor 3
The muse deserts a heart with grief oppress'd,
And lost is every joy that charm'd before !

A SONG.

[The following lines were addressed to a young lady, writter perhaps, while yet our poet's harp was rapturously tuned to the weet plaints of love :]

To thee harmonious powers belong,
That add to verse the charms of song,

Soft melodies with numbers join,

And make the poet half divine.

Since the fam'd fair of ancient days,
Who bards and worlds conspir'd to praise
Not one like thee has since appear'd,
Like thee to every heart endear'd.

How blest the bard, O lovely maid!
To find thee in thy charms arrayed;
Thy pearly teeth, thy flowing hair,
Thy neck beyond the cygnet fair.

Even lie, whose hapless eyes no ray
Admit from beauty's cheering day;
Yet though he cannot see the light,
He feels it warm, and knows it bright.

In beauty, talents, taste refined,
And all the graces of the mind,
In all, unmatch'd thy charms remail
Nor meet a rival on the plain.

THOMAS BLACKLOCK, D. D.

Sc much has been said in praise of this excellent man by his numerous admirers, that a volume of the present size could not contain even their encomiums, much less a detailed account of his eventful life, together with the selections we wish to make from his writings. We purpose, therefore, to give, in this connection, only a few of the most interesting particulars of his life's history.

Rev. Dr. Blacklock was born at Annan, Dumfrie- . shire, Scotland, in 1721. His parents were of a highly respectable class, though in humble circumstances. His father was by trade a bricklayer. When but six months old, he was attacked by that most loathsome of all diseases, the small-pox, which entirely destroyed his sight. This misfortune, it was supposed, unfitted him for any of the mechanical pursuits, nor was it thought possible for him to attain any of the higher professions. His early education, however, was not entirely neglected. His father, to whom he so affectionately alludes in some of his poems, took great pleasure in reading for his sightless boy; at first such publications as were best calculated to amuse and in

struct him, and afterward such works as Allan Ramsay, Prior's Poems, and the Tattler, Spectator and Guardian. In this way, young Blacklock soon acquired a fondness for reading, and a love for poetry.

Quite early in life, Milton, Spenser, Pope and Addison were his favorite authors. At twelve years of age, he commenced writing verses in imitation of them. Some of these early productions, it is said, were not inferior to many of the premature compositions by schoolboys possessing the best advantages. At the early age of nineteen, his father was accidentally killed by the falling of a malt-kiln. The loss of parents, at any period of one's life, is a trying affliction; and it may well be supposed that the young poet felt his loss most deeply. The few hopes he had built upon his father's probable success in life, were suddenly destroyed. Thus deprived of the support on which his youth had leaned, and left in destitute circumstances, every bright prospect of future fame faded before him, leaving only clouds of despondency which, later in life, sometimes threw their dark shadows across his pathway. After this sad event, he lived about a year with his mother, and was considered, mong his personal friends, a young man of uncommon ability.

His remarkable talents and poetical genius soon attracted the notice of Dr. Stephenson, an eminent physician in Edinburgh, who came to Dumfries on a professional visit. In him, Blacklock found a warm friend and benefactor. This kind-hearted gentleman

placed him at a grammar school in the Sootch me tropolis, and generously volunteered to defray the expenses of his education. Here he remained under the patronage of Dr. Stephenson, until 1745. He then returned to Dumfries, where he resided for some time with his brother-in-law, in whose house he was treated with kindness and affection.

In 1746, he published a small collection of his poems, at Glasgow. Shortly after, he returned to Edinburgh, and entered the University, where he pursued his studies for six years longer. He soon became master of Latin and Greek, and, it is said, could converse quite fluently in the French.

In 1754, he published at Edinburgh a second edition of his poems, greatly improved and enlarged, to which was prefixed an account of his life. This publication attracted the notice of Mr. Spence, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, who was first to call the attention of the public to the true native genius and high intellectual attainments of this blind student, and to his originality, as a poet. Through the influence of the celebrated David Hume, a warm friend and admirer of Blacklock, a third edition of his poems was published in London, in 1756, under the superintendence of Mr. Spence, together with an account of the author's life, and a very elaborate dissertation upon his character and superior merits.

About this time, he published at Edinburgh a pamphlet on Universal Etymology, or the Analysis of a Sentence.