By all the honey'd store On Hybla's thymy shore, By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear, By her whose love-lorn woe, In evening musings slow, Soothed, sweetly sad, Electra's poet's ear: By old Cephisus' deep, Who spread his wavy sweep In warbled wanderings round thy green retreat, On whose enamell'd side, When holy Freedom died, No equal haunt allur'd thy future feet. O sister meek of Truth, To my admiring youth Thy sober aid and native charms infuse! Though beauty cull'd the wreath, Still ask thy hand to range their order'd hues. While Rome could none esteem But virtue's patriot theme, You loved her hills, and led her laureate band; But staid to sing alone To one distinguish'd throne, And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land. No more, in hall or bower, The passions own thy power, Love, only Love, her forceless numbers mean; For thou hast left her shrine, Nor olive more, nor vine, Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene. To some divine excess, Faint's the cold work till thou inspire the whole What each, what all supply, May court, may charm our eye, Thou! only thou canst raise the meeting soul! Of these let others ask, To aid some mighty task, I only seek to find thy temperate vale: To maids and shepherds round, And all thy sons, O Nature! learn my tale. TOBIAS SMOLLETT, the son of a younger son of Sir James Smollett, of Bonhill, Renfrewshire, was born at Renton, in Dumbartonshire, in 1721. The "Leven Water," which he describes in one of the sweetest of his poems, laved the banks of his birth-place. He studied medicine at Glasgow, where he served his apprenticeship to a surgeon; but soon took his way southward, arrived in London, and obtained a situation as surgeon's mate in the navy. The reader of his immortal novels need not be reminded of the use he made of his ship-board experience; or how admirably he has delineated the various characters with whom his voyaging brought him into contact. He quitted the navy with disgust; and trusted to his pen for support; having however previously tried whether his profession could procure him bread. He settled as a physician at Bath, and issued an Essay, recommending its mineral waters. The attempt however was unsuccessful; "perhaps," according to one of his biographers, "because of his irritable and impatient temper, and his contempt for the low arts of finesse, servility, and cunning." From 1746 to 1771 he continued to pursue the precarious life of a public writerproducing the great works, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, &c.-his History of England-conducted the Critical Review, the British Magazine, and the Briton, periodical publications-wrote his Travels in Italy and France— Tragedies and Comedies-Translations-in short, labouring in every department of literature-which he selected and considered as his "profession," and occasionally relaxing from weightier employments, by the production of the few poetic pieces which place his name in the list of British Poets;—and at last dying, as men so cir. cumstanced usually die-famous, but penny less. He had therefore to endure many of the vicissitudes to which a life of literary labour is invariably exposed. Of the millions he has delighted with the productions of his genius, how few are conscious of the perplexities, embarrassments, and necessities, by which their author was surrounded. Labour and anxiety did the work of years; "distemper and disquiet" followed the disappointments to which he was destined; a vain attempt to struggle with both led him to the continent. He wrote an account of his travels-" it was nothing but an account of his miserable feelings." He returned, and sought consolation and relief amid the glens and hills of his native country-we have no reason to think that he found either. Again-he journeyed to Italy; the lamp was exhausted. He died near Leghorn, on the 21st of October, 1771, in the 51st year of his age, and left his widow to struggle with penury in a foreign land. But, after his death, two costly monuments were erected to his memory; one where he was born, the other where he died. Such is too frequently the only recompense which genius receives from those who profess to worship it. Thousands are ready with their offerings, when they are no longer needed: a little timely aid might have prolonged the life of Smollett, and have added many other works to the long list which renders his name imperishable. "In his person," it is said, "he was graceful and handsome; and in his air and manner there was a certain dignity which commanded respect. He possessed a loftiness and elevation of sentiment and character, without pride or haughtiness; for to his equals and inferiors he was ever polite, friendly, and generous." The booksellers were the only patrons of Tobias Smollett; and he appears to have acted upon his own principle: "Thy spirit, Independence, let me share, As a Poet, he occupies no very high station; although some of his productions will always find place among the choicest specimens of British poetry. They possess but little of the energy and spirit by which his prose writings are characterized. They are, however, full of grace and delicacy; and at times are not far distant from the sublime. "Advice," and "Reproof," two satires; the "Ode to Independence," the "Tears of Scotland," and the "Ode to Leven Water," are his only poems of any length, and even these contain but a few pages. Some of his lesser compositions are, however, full of feeling and grace. MOURN, hapless Caledonia, mourn The wretched owner sees afar Thy swains are famish'd on the rocks, What boots it then, in every clime, The rural pipe and merry lay Oh! baneful cause, oh! fatal morn, The pious mother doom'd to death, While the warm blood bedews my veins, Within my filial breast shall beat; And, spite of her insulting foe, ODE TO LEVEN-WATER. ON Leven's banks, while free to rove, Pure stream! in whose transparent wave With white, round, polish'd pebbles spread; Still on thy banks so gaily green, |