pen of a gentle satirist; and proceeds to state how by a perpetual struggle against its influence he has contrived to master, or at least control, the "day-mare;" swimming along the troubled stream of life, It would be difficult to point out, in the whole range of English poetry, so many striking and original thoughts in the same number of lines. They were penned down as they occurred to him. If the descriptions appear unconnected, we are amply compensated by finding no weak link to bind them together. His object was to write less for the world than himself-and if years were employed in producing this one, and comparatively short, addition to our national store of verse, they were not spent in vain. The selection we have made from it will, we think, bear out our opinion of its high and enduring merit, and justify even higher praise than we have CONTENTMENT, parent of delight, So much a stranger to our sight, Say, goddess, in what happy place Mortals behold thy blooming face; Thy gracious auspices impart, And for thy temple choose my heart. They, whom thou deignest to inspire, Thy science learn, to bound desire; By happy alchymy of mind They turn to pleasure all they find; They both disdain in outward mien And meretricious arts of dress, And thus she models my desire. A farm some twenty miles from town, And drive, while t' other holds the plough; A pond before full to the brim, Where cows may cool, and geese may swim; With op'ning views of hill and dale, Where the half-cirque, which vision bounds, And woods impervious to the breeze, Thick phalanx of embodied trees, From hills through plains in dusk array Here stillness, height, and solemn shade Here nymphs from hollow oaks relate Fresh pastures speckled o'er with sheep, Brown fields their fallow sabbaths keep, Plump Ceres golden tresses wear, And poppy top-knots deck her hair, And silver streams through meadows stray, And Naïads on the margin play, And lesser nymphs on side of hills From play-thing urns pour down the rills. Thus shelter'd, free from care and strife, May I enjoy a calm through life; As men at land see storms at sea, |