See faction, safe in low degree,
As men at land see storms at sea,
And laugh at miserable elves,
Not kind, so much as to themselves,
Cursed with such souls of base alloy,
As can possess, but not enjoy;
Debarred the pleasure to impart
By avarice, sphincter of the heart;
Who wealth, hard earned by guilty cares,
Bequeath untouched to thankless heirs ;
May I, with look ungloomed by guile,
And wearing virtue's livery-smile,
Prone the distressed to relieve,
And little trespasses forgive;
With income not in fortune's power,
And skill to make a busy hour;
With trips to town, life to amuse,
To purchase books, and hear the news,
To see old friends, brush off the clown,
And quicken taste at coming down,
Unhurt by sickness' blasting rage,
And slowly mellowing in age,
When fate extends its gathering gripe,
Fall off like fruit grown fully ripe,
Quit a worn being without pain,
Perhaps to blossom soon again.

ANNE, COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA.

'It is remarkable,' says Mr Wordsworth, 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.' The 'Nocturnal Reverie' was written by ANNE, COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA, the daughter of Sir William Kingsmill, Southampton, who died in 1720. Her lines are smoothly versified, and possess a tone of calm and contemplative observation:

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 chequers still with red the dusky brakes;
When scattered glow-worms, but in twilight fine,
Show 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 shows
Some ancient fabric, 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 inferior 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.

The following is another specimen of the correct and smooth versification of the countess, and seems to us superior to the Nocturnal Reverie?'

Life's Progress.

How gaily is at first begun

Our life's uncertain race!
Whilst yet that sprightly morning sun,
With which we just set out to run,
Enlightens all the place.

How smiling the world's prospect lies,
How tempting to go through!
Not Canaan to the prophet's eyes,
From Pisgah, with a sweet surprise,
Did more inviting show.
How soft the first ideas prove

Which wander through our minds!
How full the joys, how free the love,
Which does that early season move,

As flowers the western winds!
Our sighs are then but vernal air,
But April drops our tears,
Which swiftly passing, all grows fair,
Whilst beauty compensates our care,
And youth each vapour clears.
But oh! too soon, alas! we climb,
Scarce feeling we ascend

The gently-rising hill of Time,
From whence with grief we see that prime,
And all its sweetness end.

The die now cast, our station known,
Fond expectation past:

The thorns which former days had sown,
To crops of late repentance grown,
Through which we toil at last.
Whilst every care's a driving harm,

That helps to bear us down;
Which faded smiles no more can charm,
But every tear's a winter storm,
And every look's a frown.

WILLIAM SOMERVILLE.

The author of The Chase is still included in our editions of the poets, but is now rarely read or consulted. WILLIAM SOMERVILLE (1682-1742), was, as he tells Allan Ramsay, his brother-poet,

A squire well born, and six foot high.

Woomervile.

His estate lay in Warwickshire, and brought him in £1500 per annum. He was generous, but extrava gant, and died in distressed circumstances, 'plagued

and threatened by wretches,' says Shenstone, that are low in every sense, and forced to drink himself into pains of the body to get rid of the pains of the mind.' He died in 1742, and was buried at Wotton, near Henley-on-Arden. "The Chase' is in

Urn erected by Shenstone to Somerville. blank verse, and contains practical instructions and admonitions to sportsmen. The following is an animated sketch of a morning in autumn, preparatory to 'throwing off the pack:'

Now golden Autumn from her open lap

Her fragrant bounties showers; the fields are shorn;
Inwardly smiling, the proud farmer views
The rising pyramids that grace his yard,

And counts his large increase; his barns are stored,
And groaning staddles bend beneath their load.
All now is free as air, and the gay pack
In the rough bristly stubbles range unblamed;
No widow's tears o'erflow, no secret curse
Swells in the farmer's breast, which his pale lips
Trembling conceal, by his fierce landlord awed:
But courteous now he levels every fence,
Joins in the common cry, and halloos loud,
Charmed with the rattling thunder of the field.
Oh bear me, some kind power invisible !
To that extended lawn where the gay court
View the swift racers, stretching to the goal;
Games more renowned, and a far nobler train,
Than proud Elean fields could boast of old.
Oh! were a Theban lyre not wanting here,
And Pindar's voice, to do their merit right!
Or to those spacious plains, where the strained eye,
In the wide prospect lost, beholds at last
Sarum's proud spire, that o'er the hills ascends,
And pierces through the clouds. Or to thy downs,
Fair Cotswold, where the well-breathed beagle climbs,
With matchless speed, thy green aspiring brow,
And leaves the lagging multitude behind.

Hail, gentle Dawn! mild, blushing goddess, hail!
Rejoiced I see thy purple mantle spread
O'er half the skies; gems pave thy radiant way,
And orient pearls from every shrub depend.
Farewell, Cleora; here deep sunk in down,
Slumber secure, with happy dreams amused,
Till grateful streams shall tempt thee to receive
Thy early meal, or thy officious maids;
The toilet placed shall urge thee to perform

The important work. Me other joys invite;
The horn sonorous calls, the pack awaked,
Their matins chant, nor brook thy long delay.
My courser hears their voice; see there with ears
And tail erect, neighing, he paws the ground;
Fierce rapture kindles in his reddening eyes,
And boils in every vein. As captive boys
Cowed by the ruling rod and haughty frowns
Of pedagogues severe, from their hard tasks,
If once dismissed, no limits can contain
The tumult raised within their little breasts,
But give a loose to all their frolic play;
So from their kennel rush the joyous pack;
A thousand wanton gaieties express
Their inward ecstacy, their pleasing sport
Once more indulged, and liberty restored.
The rising sun that o'er the horizon peeps,
As many colours from their glossy skins
Beaming reflects, as paint the various bow
When April showers descend. Delightful scene!
Where all around is gay; men, horses, dogs;
And in each smiling countenance appears
Fresh blooming health, and universal joy.

Somerville wrote a poetical address to Addison, on the latter purchasing an estate in Warwickshire. In his verses to Addison,' says Johnson, the couplet which mentions Clio is written with the most exquisite delicacy of praise; it exhibits one of those happy strokes that are seldom attained.' Addison, it is well-known, signed his papers in the 'Spectator' with the letters forming the name of Clio. The couplet which gratified Johnson so highly is as follows:

When panting virtue her last efforts made,
You brought your Clio to the virgin's aid.

In welcoming Addison to the banks of Avon, Somerville does not scruple to place him above Shakspeare as a poet!

In heaven he sings; on earth your muse supplies
The important loss, and heals our weeping eyes:
Correctly great, she melts each flinty heart
With equal genius, but superior art.

The Scottish muse had been silent for nearly a century, excepting when it found brief expression in some stray song of broad humour or simple pathos, chanted by the population of the hills and dales. The genius of the country was at length revived in all its force and nationality, its comic dialogue, Doric simplicity and tenderness, by ALLAN RAMSAY, whose very name is now an impersonation of Scottish scenery and manners. The religious austerity of the Covenanters still hung over Scotland, and damped the efforts of poets and dramatists: but a freer spirit found its way into the towns, along with the increase of trade and commerce. The higher classes were in the habit of visiting London, though the journey was still performed on horseback; and the writings of Pope and Swift were circulated over the North. Clubs and taverns were rife in Edinburgh, in which the assembled wits loved to indulge in a pleasantry that often degenerated to excess. Talent was readily known and appreciated; and when Ramsay appeared as an author, he found the nation ripe for his native humour, his ' mannerspainting strains,' and his lively original sketches

had previously represented himself as the vicegerent of Apollo, and equal to Homer! He now removed to a better shop, and instead of the Mercury's head which had graced his sign-board, he put up the presentment of two brothers' of the Muse, Ben Jonson and Drummond. He next established a circulating library, the first in Scotland. He associated on familiar terms with the leading nobility, lawyers, wits, and literati of Scotland, and was the Pope or Swift of the North. His son, afterwards a distinguished artist, he sent to Rome for instruction. But the prosperity of poets seems liable to an uncommon share of crosses. He was led by the promptings of a taste then rare in Scotland to expend his savings in the erection of a theatre, for the performance of the regular drama. He wished to keep his troop' together by the pith of reason;' but he did not calculate on the pith of an act of parliament in the hands of a hostile magistrate. The statute for licensing theatres prohibited all dramatic exhibitions without special license and the royal letters-patent; and on the strength of this enactment the magistrates of Edinburgh shut up Allan's theatre, leaving him without redress. To add to his mortification, the envious poetasters and strict religionists of the day attacked him with personal satires and lampoons, under such titles as-'A Looking-Glass for Allan Ramsay;' The Dying Words of Allan Ramsay;' and 'The Flight of Religious Piety from Scotland, upon the account of Ramsay's lewd books, and the hell-bred playhouse comedians,' &c. Allan endeavoured to enlist President Forbes and the judges on his side by a poetical address, in which he prays for compensation from the legislature

Syne, for amends for what I've lost,
Edge me into some canny post.

His circumstances and wishes at this crisis are more particularly explained in a letter to the president, which now lies before us :

Will you,' he writes, give me something to do? Here I pass a sort of half idle scrimp life, tending a trifling trade, that scarce affords me the needful. Had I not got a parcel of guineas from you, and such as you, who were pleased to patronise my subscriptions, I should not have had a gray groat. I think shame (but why should I, when I open my mind to one of your goodness?) to hint that I want to have some small commission, when it happens to fall in your way to put me into it."*

It does not appear that he either got money or a post, but he applied himself attentively to his business, and soon recruited his purse. A citizen-like good sense regulated the life of Ramsay. He gave over poetry before,' he prudently says, the coolness of fancy that attends advanced years should make me risk the reputation I had acquired.'

Frae twenty-five to five-and-forty, My muse was nowther sweer nor dorty; My Pegasus wad break his tether E'en at the shagging of a feather, And through ideas scour like drift, Streaking his wings up to the lift; Then, then, my soul was in a low, That gart my numbers safely row. But eild and judgment 'gin to say, Let be your sangs, and learn to pray. About the year 1743, his circumstances were suffielently flourishing to enable him to build himself a small octagon-shaped house on the north side of

*From the manuscript collections in Culloden House.

the Castle hill, which he called Ramsay Lodge, but which some of his waggish friends compared to a

goose pie. He told Lord Elibank one day of this ludicrous comparison. What,' said the witty peer, 'a goose pie! In good faith, Allan, now that I see you in it, I think the house is not ill named.' He lived in this singular-looking mansion (which has since been somewhat altered) twelve years, and died of a complaint that had long afflicted him, scurvy in the gums, on the 7th of January 1758, at the age of seventy-two. So much of pleasantry, good humour, and worldly enjoyment, is mixed up with the history of Allan Ramsay, that his life is one of the 'green and sunny spots' in literary biography. His genius was well rewarded; and he possessed that turn of mind which David Hume says it is more happy to possess than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a-year-a disposition always to see the favourable side of things.

Ramsay's poetical works are sufficiently various; and one of his editors has ambitiously classed them under the heads of serious, elegiac, comic, satiric, epigrammatical, pastoral, lyric, epistolary, fables and tales. He wrote trash in all departments, but failed in none. His tales are quaint and humorous, though, like those of Prior, they are too often indelicate. The Monk and Miller's Wife, founded on a poem of Dunbar, is as happy an adaptation of an old poet as any of Pope's or Dryden's from Chaucer. His lyrics want the grace, simplicity, and beauty which Burns breathed into these wood-notes wild,' designed alike for cottage and hall; yet some of those in the 'Gentle Shepherd' are delicate and tender; and others, such as The last time I came o'er the Moor, and The Yellow-haired Laddie, are still favourites with all lovers of Scottish song. In one of the least happy of the lyrics there occurs this beautiful image:

How joyfully my spirits rise,

When dancing she moves finely, O;
I guess what heaven is by her eyes,
Which sparkle so divinely, O.

His Lochaber no More is a strain of manly feeling and unaffected pathos. The poetical epistles of

Ramsay were undoubtedly the prototypes of those by Burns, and many of the stanzas may challenge comparison with them. He makes frequent classical allusions, especially to the works of Horace, with which he seems to have been well acquainted, and whose gay and easy turn of mind harmonised with his own. In an epistle to Mr James Arbuckle, the poet gives a characteristic and minute painting of himself:

Imprimis, then, for tallness, I
Am five foot and four inches high;
A black-a-viced snod dapper fellow,
Nor lean, nor overlaid wi' tallow;
With phiz of a Morocco cut,
Resembling a late man of wit,
Auld gabbet Spec, who was sae cunning
To be a dummie ten years running.
Then for the fabric of my mind,
"Tis mair to mirth than grief inclined:
I rather choose to laugh at folly,
Than show dislike by melancholy;
Well judging a sour heavy face
Is not the truest mark of grace.
I hate a drunkard or a glutton,
Yet I'm nae fae to wine and mutton:
Great tables ne'er engaged my wishes,
When crowded with o'er mony dishes;
A healthfu' stomach, sharply set,
Prefers a back-seyl piping het.
I never could imagine 't vicious
Of a fair fame to be ambitious:
Proud to be thought a comic poet,
And let a judge of numbers know it,
I court occasion thus to show it.

Ramsay addressed epistles to Gay and Somerville, and the latter paid him in kind, in very flattering verses. In one of Allan's answers is the following picturesque sketch, in illustration of his own contempt for the stated rules of art:

I love the garden wild and wide,

Where oaks have plum trees by their side;
Where woodbines and the twisting vine
Clip round the pear tree and the pine;
Where mixed jonquils and gowans grow,

And roses 'midst rank clover blow
Upon a bank of a clear strand,

In wimplings led by nature's hand;
Though docks and brambles here and there
May sometimes cheat the gardener's care,
Yet this to me's a paradise
Compared with prime cut plots and nice,
Where nature has to art resigned,
Till all looks mean, stiff, and confined.

Heaven Homer taught; the critic draws
Only from him and such their laws:
The native bards first plunge the deep
Before the artful dare to leap.

The 'Gentle Shepherd' is the greatest of Ramsay's works, and perhaps the finest pastoral drama in the world. It possesses that air of primitive simplicity and seclusion which seems indispensable in compositions of this class, at the same time that its landscapes are filled with life-like beings, who interest us from their character, situation, and circumstances. It has none of that studied pruriency and unnatural artifice which are intruded into the Faithful Shepherdess' of Fletcher, and is equally free from the tedious allegory and forced conceits of most pastoral poems. It is a genuine picture of Scottish life, but of life passed in simple rural employments, apart from the guilt and fever of large towns, and reflecting only the pure and unsophisticated emotions of

1 A sirloin.

our nature. The affected sensibilities and feigned distresses of the Corydons and Delias find no place in Ramsay's clear and manly page. He drew his shepherds from the life, placed them in scenes which he actually saw, and made them speak the language which he every day heard the free idiomatic speech of his native vales. His art lay in the beautiful selection of his materials-in the grouping of his well-defined characters-the invention of a plot, romantic yet natural-the delightful appropriateness of every speech and auxiliary incident, and in the tone of generous sentiment and true feeling which sanctifies this scene of humble virtue and happiness. The love of his gentle' rustics is at first artless and confiding, though partly disguised by maiden coyness and arch humour; and it is expressed in language and incidents alternately amusing and impassioned. At length the hero is elevated in station above his mistress, and their affection assumes a deeper character from the threatened dangers of a separation. Mutual distress and tenderness break down reserve. The simple heroine, without forgetting her natural dignity and modesty, lets out her whole soul to her early companion; and when assured of his unalterable attachment, she not only, like Miranda, weeps at what she is glad of,' but, with the true pride of a Scottish maiden, she resolves to study 'gentler charms,' and to educate herself to be worthy of her lover. Poetical justice is done to this faithful attachment, by both the characters being found equal in birth and station. The poet's taste and judgment are evinced in the superiority which he gives his hero and heroine, without debasing their associates below their proper level; while a ludicrous contrast to both is supplied by the underplot of Bauldy and his courtships. The elder characters in the piece afford a fine relief to the youthful pairs, besides completing the rustic picture. While one scene discloses the young shepherds by craigy bields' and 'crystal springs,' or presents Peggy and Jenny on the bleaching green—

A trotting burnie wimpling through the ground— another shows us the snug thatched cottage, with its barn and peat-stack, or the interior of the house, with a clear ingle glancing on the floor, and its inmates happy with innocent mirth and rustic plenty. The drama altogether makes one proud of peasant life and the virtues of a Scottish cottage. By an ill-judged imitation of Gay, in his Beggar's Opera,' Ramsay interspersed songs throughout the Gentle Shepherd,' which interrupt the action of the piece, and too often merely repeat, in a diluted form, the sentiments of the dialogue. These should be removed to the end of the drama, leaving undisturbed the most perfect delineation of rural life and manners, without vulgar humility or affectation, that ever was drawn.

[Ode from Horace.]

Look up to Pentland's towering tap,
Buried beneath great wreaths of snaw,
O'er ilka cleugh, ilk scaur, and slap,
As high as ony Roman wa'.
Driving their ba's frae whins or tee,
There's no ae gowfer to be seen,
Nor douser fowk wysing ajee

The biast bouls on Tamson's green.

Then fling on coals, and ripe the ribs,

And beek the house baith but and ben; That mutchkin stoup it hauds but dribs, Then let's get in the tappit hen.