HENRY BROOKE, a native of Cavan, in Ireland, was born in 1706. His father was a clergyman of the Established Church. His earliest tutor was the celebrated Dr. Sheridan. Having pursued his academic studies with considerable success in the University of Dublin, he was entered at the Inner Temple; and, at seventeen years old, attracted the attention of the wits by whom the age was rendered "famous." The brief biographic account which his daughter has prefixed to an edition of his works, records that Swift "prophesied wonders of him"-Pope “affectionately loved him"-Lyttleton "cherished a mind and genius so similar to his own"-the great Lord Chatham was "fond of him;" and the Prince of Wales, the munificent Mæcenas of the time, "caressed him with uncommon familiarity." It is not therefore surprising that the young and ardent Irishman should have "carried more sail than ballast," and have fancied that life was as a long and happy day of unbroken sunshine. Love, however, as well as fame, had visited his youth. Before he had reached the period of manhood he found that his devotion to the Muse must be shared by a large and increasing family.

A vain effort to obtain professional practice in Dublin was followed by an attempt to secure profitable distinction in London. The publication of a poem, entitled "Universal Beauty," had excited the hopes of his friends; and on his again visiting England, he devoted all his energies to the production of a tragedy. "Gustavus Vasa" is still read and admired. The government either ascertained or supposed that the Poet was a political partisan; and the theatre was closed against the performance. The published copy, however, brought him golden opinions, tempted him to "furnish a genteel house" at Twickenham, to hire servants, and to send for his family to participate in his glory and prosperity. Now, according to his daughter, "all was flattering, all was gay." But the "sky became suddenly overcast;" a severe illness compelled his return to Ireland; and he continued there, during the remainder of his prolonged life, consoling himself, "in the society of the Muses and the peaceful bosom of domestic love, for lost advantages and disappointed hopes." He died in 1783. Brooke is the author of thirteeen dramatic pieces; and it is said that, at one period, Garrick had so high an opinion of his genius that he desired to make him his apprentice for life, on condition of receiving a shilling a line for all he might produce-a proffer which the Poet "rejected with some degree of haughtiness," and lost a friend who might have been useful when the tide of prosperity was on the ebb. "Gustavus Vasa" is the best of his compositions. It contains many fine passages; but, as whole, is calculated to bear out the supposition, that it was mainly indebted for its large success and popularity to the circumstances out of which it is considered to have arisen.

His poetical compositions consist of sundry Miscellaneous Pieces; a Translation of part of the Jerusalem Delivered; a philosophical poem, entitled "Universal Beauty;" and some contributions to the collection of "Fables for the Female Sex," originally published by Henry Moore. These Fables have been frequently reprinted; and all editions of them contain those that were unquestionably written by Brooke, We have introduced him into this volume, chiefly for the purpose of restoring to him the right to which he is justly entitled. The "Fables," indeed, have no very large claims to popularity; but those of Brooke are of a better order than the rest. "The Female Seducers" is written with grace and spirit. "Universal Beauty" will scarcely satisfy the reader that Pope was sincere, when he "prophesied the expansion of genius and fame, from a beginning so wonderful in so very young a man." The object of the Poet was to exhibit, by a general survey of nature,, the connexion, dependence, use, and harmony, of its several parts-"ending," as he states, "with a poetical rhapsody on the contemplation of the beauty of the whole." It was long ago determined that a philosophical, is not likely to be a popular, poem; the writer's treatises on spirit and matter, physics, anatomy, and the affections, passions, and faculties of the mind, are but little calculated to charm and attract in the form of verse with greater certainty than if the lectures were delivered in plain prose. The work is dull and uninteresting; the author appears to have been rarely moved to enthusiasm, and the reader is as seldom excited. He conveys admitted truths in an easy and agreeable manner, but he has failed in his efforts to render them more impressive and attractive in consequence of the garb in which they are arrayed.

LOVELY penitent, arise,
Come, and claim thy kindred skies;
Come, thy sister angels say,
Thou hast wept thy stains away.
Let experience now decide,
'Twixt the good and evil tried;
In the smooth, enchanted ground,
Say, unfold the treasures found.

Structures, rais'd by morning dreams, Sands, that trip the flitting streams, Down, that anchors on the air,

Clouds, that paint their changes there.

Seas, that smoothly dimpling lie,
While the storm impends on high,
Showing, in an obvious glass,
Joys, that in possession pass;
Transient, fickle, light, and gay,
Flatt'ring, only to betray;
What, alas, can life contain ?
Life, like all its circles, vain!
Will the stork, intending rest,
On the billow build her nest?
Will the bee demand his store,
From the bleak and bladeless shore?
Man alone, intent to stray,
Ever turns from wisdom's way,
Lays up wealth in foreign land,
Sows the sea, and plows the sand.
Soon this elemental mass,

Soon th' encumb'ring world shall pass,
Form be wrapt in wasting fire,

Time be spent, and life expire.

Then, ye boasted works of men,

Where is your asylum then?
Sons of pleasure, sons of care,
Tell me, mortals, tell me where?
Gone, like traces on the deep,
Like a sceptre, grasp'd in sleep,
Dews, exhal'd from morning glades,
Melting snows, and gliding shades.
Pass the world, and what's behind?
Virtue's gold, by fire refin'd;

From an universe deprav'd,

From the wreck of nature sav'd.

Like the life-supporting grain,

Fruit of patience and of pain,
On the swain's autumnal day,
Winnow'd from the chaff away.

Little trembler, fear no more,
Thou hast plenteous crops in store,
Seed, by genial sorrows sown,
More than all thy scorners own.

What though hostile earth despise, Heav'n beholds with gentler eyes; Heav'n thy friendless steps shall guide, Cheer thy hours, and guard thy side.

When the fatal trump shall sound,
When th' immortals pour around,
Heav'n shall thy return attest,
Hail'd by myriads of the bless'd.
Little native of the skies,
Lovely penitent, arise,

Calm thy bosom, clear thy brow,
Virtue is thy sister now.

More delightful are my woes,
Than the rapture pleasure knows;
Richer far the weeds I bring,
Than the robes that grace a king.
On my wars, of shortest date,
Crowns of endless triumph wait;
On my cares, a period bless'd;
On my toils eternal rest.

Come, with virtue at thy side,
Come, be every bar defied,
Till we gain our native shore,
Sister, come, and turn no more.

A DIRGE.

WRETCHED mortals, doom'd to go
Through the vale of death and woe!
Let us travel sad and slow.

Care and sickness, toil and pain,
Here their restless vigils keep;
Sighs are all the winds that blow,
Tears are all the streams that flow!
Virtue hopes reward in vain—
The gentlest lot she can obtain
Is but to sit and weep!

Ye dreary mansions of enduring sleep,
Where pale mortality lies dark and deep!
Thou silent, though insatiate Grave,
Gorged with the beauteous and the brave,
Close, close thy maw-thy feast is o'er,
Time and Death can give no more!

GEORGE LYTTLETON, the son of Sir Thomas Lyttleton, of Hagley, in Worcestershire, was born in 1709. Having at an early age distinguished himself at Eton, he entered at Christ Church, Oxford, and soon afterwards commenced the continental tourvisiting France and Italy;-yet not as an idler; for his published "Letters to his Father" afford ample proof that he was turning his opportunities to the best account, and laying the foundation of that after-fame which he so brilliantly achieved. He returned about 1730, obtained a seat in Parliament, and became one of the most eager opponents of Walpole, --so eager indeed, that his opposition was decried as acrimonious, malignant, and ungrateful. The charge of ingratitude is, however, based only upon his supposed obligation to the minister, for a formal letter of introduction to a foreign prince. In 1737, the Prince of Wales, who, driven from St. James's, kept a separate Court, appointed Mr. Lyttleton his secretary. From this period, until the close of his life, his career as a statesman was active, zealous, and upright. He was first a Lord of the Treasury, and subsequently Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1757, upon a change of ministry, he was called to the House of Peers, and retired from public business to luxuriate among the "shades of Hagley," passing the residue of his days in social intercourse and the enjoyments of "literary ease."

He died at Hagley-his paternal estate, which he had adorned with judgment and taste-on the 18th of November, 1773. His death-bed was that of an upright man and a pure Christian. Almost the last sentence he uttered was addressed to a friend who stood beside him ;-" Be good, be virtuous, my lord-you must come to this." He is described as never having been strong or healthy. "He had a slender uncompacted frame, and a meagre face." To his first wife he was devotedly attached, and her death produced "The Monody" to her memory, the most popular of all his compositions. He sought happiness with a second; - but "the experiment," according to Dr. Johnson, "was unsuccessful."

His prose works are numerous and all excellent. He was not only an upright statesman, but an honest historian, a judicious critic, a pleasant traveller, a clever political writer, and a graceful poet.

As a poet, however, Lord Lyttleton cannot claim a very high rank. Poetry was his amusement, and not his occupation—a means of relaxation, and not a serious pursuit. His compositions may be received as proofs of what he might have done, had he cultivated his natural taste and power, rather than as achievements that merit fame. Yet the "faint praise" of Johnson, that his poems "have nothing to be despised and little to be admired," does not render justice to the writer. They are elegant and graceful, if neither vigorous nor inventive. He wrote as a statesman-prudent rather than enterprising-more careful to keep within the limits assigned by precedents, than to hazard a loftier flight. The Four Eclogues, entitled, "The Progress of Love," are designed to be pastoral, but they have all the faults-affectations, false glitter and absurdities which the age appeared to consider more valuable than nature and truth. A few epistles, and a few songs, comprise the rest of his productions. The "Advice to a Lady," and the "Monody," are now perhaps the only two that retain their hold upon public favour. The former, we think his most valuable production. The style is exceedingly correct, and, indeed, refined; and there is more vigour to be found in it than in the other compositions of his leisure hours. It was written when he was young-bearing the date of 1731-and when probably he had permitted to his fancy a freer range and a wider scope than he thought advisable at a more advanced period. The " Monody to the Memory of his Lady" has obtained greater celebrity, and undoubtedly contains passages of considerable beauty and pathos. The sympathies of the reader are, however, continually jarred by references to the fauns and dryads of fable, and by intreaties to the muses to record her virtues and deplore her loss. We are forced into the notion, that he studied how to make sorrow graceful rather than natural, and that he wrote more with a view to immortalize his learning than his grief. Yet it is certain that he was deeply and fervently attached to his lady; and, according to all accounts, she was as he describes her, in a brief epitaph, of more value to her memory than the prolonged "Monody,"

"Made to engage all hearts and charm all eyes.”.