And meretricious arts of dress,
To feign a joy, and hide distress;
Unmov'd when the rude tempest blows,
Without an opiate they repose;
And, cover'd by your shield, defy
The whizzing shafts, that round them fly :
Nor meddling with the god's affairs,
Concern themselves with distant cares;
But place their bliss in mental rest,
And feast upon the good possess'd.
Forc'd by soft violence of pray'r,
The blithsome goddess soothes my care;
I feel the deity inspire,

And thus she models my desire.
Two hundred pounds half-yearly paid,
Annuity securely made,

A farm some twenty miles from town,
Small, tight, salubrious, and my own;
Two maids, that never saw the town,
A serving-man, not quite a clown;
A boy to help to tread the mow,
And drive, while t' other holds the plough;
A chief, of temper form'd to please,
Fit to converse, and keep the keys;
And better to preserve the peace,
Commission'd by the name of niece;
With understandings of a size
To think their master very wise.
May Heav'n (it's all I wish for) send
One genial room to treat a friend,
Where decent cupboard, little plate,
Display benevolence, not state.
And may my humble dwelling stand
Upon some chosen spot of land:

A pond before full to the brim,

Where cows may cool, and geese may swim;
Behind, a green like velvet neat,
Soft to the eye, and to the feet;
Where od'rous plants in evening fair
Breathe all around ambrosial air;
From Eurus, foe to kitchen ground,
Fenc'd by a slope with bushes crown'd,
Fit dwelling for the feather'd throng,
Who pay their quit-rents with a song;

With op'ning views of hill and dale,
Which sense and fancy too regale,

Where the half-cirque, which vision bounds,
Like amphitheatre surrounds;

And woods impervious to the breeze,

Thick phalanx of embodied trees,

From hills through plains in dusk array
Extended far, repel the day.

Here stillness, height, and solemn shade
Invite, and contemplation aid:

Here nymphs from hollow oaks relate
The dark decrees and will of Fate,
And dreams beneath the spreading beech
Inspire, and docile fancy teach;
While soft as breezy breath of wind,
Impulses rustle through the mind.
Here Dryads, scorning Phoebus' ray,
While Pan melodious pipes away,
In measur'd motions frisk about,
Till old Silenus puts them out.
There see the clover, pea, and bean,
Vie in variety of green;

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;
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,
Curs'd with such souls of base alloy,
As can possess, but not enjoy;
Debarr'd the pleasure to impart
By av'rice, sphincter of the heart,
Who wealth, hard-earn'd by guilty cares,
Bequeath untouch'd to thankless heirs.
May I, with look ungloom'd by guile,
And wearing Virtue's liv'ry-smile,

Prone the distressed to relieve,
And little trespasses forgive,

With income not in fortune's pow'r
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.

THE SPARROW AND DIAMOND. A SONG.

I LATELY saw, what now I sing,
Fair Lucia's hand display'd;
This finger grac'd a diamond ring,
On that a sparrow play'd.

The feather'd play-thing she caress'd,
She stroak'd its head and wings;
And while it nestled in her breast,
She lisp'd the dearest things.

With chisel'd bill a spark ill-set
He loosen'd from the rest,

And swallow'd down to grind his meat,
The easier to digest.

She seiz'd his bill with wild affright,
Her diamond to descry:
'Twas gone, she sicken'd at the sight,
Moaning her bird would die.

The tongue-ty'd knocker none might use,
The curtains none undraw,

The footmen went without their shoes,
The street was laid with straw.

The doctor us'd his oily art
Of strong emetic kind,

Th' apothecary play'd his part,
And engineer'd behind.

When physic ceas'd to spend its store,
To bring away the stone,
Dicky, like people given o'er,

Picks up, when let alone.

His eyes dispell'd their sickly dews,

He peck'd behind his wing;

Lucia recovering at the news,
Relapses for the ring.

Meanwhile within her beauteous breast

Two different passions strove;

When av'rice ended the contest,
And triumph'd over love.

Poor little, pretty, fluttering thing,
Thy pains the sex display,
Who, only to repair a ring,

Could take thy life away.

Drive av'rice from your breasts, ye fair,
Monster of foulest mien:

Ye would not let it harbour there,
Could but its form be seen.

It made a virgin put on guile,

Truth's image break her word, A Lucia's face forbear to smile, A Venus kill her bird.

RICHARD SAVAGE was born in Fox-court, Holborn, on the 10th January, 1697-8. His mother was the infamous Countess of Macclesfield, who, according to Dr. Johnson, "having lived for some time upon uneasy terms with her husband, thought a voluntary confession of adultery the most obvious and expeditious mode of obtaining her liberty; and who therefore declared that the father of her unborn child was the Earl Rivers." Her son was thus rendered illegitimate. From the moment of his birth his mother regarded him with unmingled hatred,—and survived to find that her implacable and restless cruelty had procured his death in a jail.

As soon as he was born, he was consigned to the care of a poor woman, with direc tions that he was never to be acquainted with his parentage. At an early age he was placed at a grammar school at St. Albans; here his genius made its own way, and laid the foundation of his after fame. The secret of his birth was kept from him, until the death of his nurse led to discovery of the circumstances connected with it, and the motives for their concealment. The unnatural mother was then applied to; in vain ; "he could neither soften her heart nor open her hand;" and the pressure of want compelled him to resort to his pen for support," he became of necessity an author!" Many are the temptations which strong feelings, high desires, and warm passions leave in the way of youth; but when want is added to them, they become indeed fearful. The struggle is generally an awful one; but it too frequently terminates by leaving him, who might have been eminent for goodness, notorious for vice. There is a pride of soul that conducts to iniquity as well as to integrity. The picture of genius struggling with difficulties is a too familiar one; nights of wretched lodging,-days of almost starvation,-and, at the same time, high thoughts of what might be, and low murmurs of what is not! Who will wonder if, when the heart grows sick with disappointment, and vice is more ready than virtue to apply her temporary and delusive remedies, the unhappy struggler against all we shudder to think upon should become the victim where he might have led the triumph! The woes and wants of Savage have been pictured to us: those of too many like him-like him in strong power and wretched destiny-have found no historian, gentle or ungentle, to record their sufferings and their fate. During a considerable portion of his brief career, Savage was "without lodging, and often without meat;" trusting to chance for the one-and for the other, to the poor shelter of some wretched shed; pursuing his studies in the fields or in the streets; picking up scraps of paper, and stepping into shops to borrow pen and ink to pen down the thoughts to which his mind had given birth; receiving assistance now and then from persons whom his talents or troubles brought to him, but seeming as if absolutely doomed to misery by fate; for the chances of prosperity which now and then came to him, passed away, and left him more wretched than before. That he was, however, the master of his own destiny is sufliciently apparent. His reckless extravagance,-his indomitable pride, arising perhaps from a consciousness of his intellectual value,-his dissipated habits, opposed to all regularity, his exceeding irritability,―his uncertain and capricious temper, were his continual banes. "He seldom found a stranger that he did not leave a friend;" but "he had not often a friend long without obliging him to become a stranger." He was arrested in Bristol for a debt of eight pounds, consigned to a jail, and died there on the 1st August, 1743, having owed the few comforts and consolations of his deathbed, and even the decencies of interment, to the benevolence of his jailer.

Dr. Johnson gives us his portrait. "He was of a middle stature, of a thin habit of body, a long visage, coarse features, and melancholy aspect; of a grave and manly deportment, a solemn dignity of mien, but which, upon a nearer acquaintance, softened into an engaging easiness of manners. His walk was slow, and his voice mournful; he was easily excited to smiles, but very seldom provoked to laughter." We have dwelt so much on the personal character of Savage, that we have little space to comment on his poetry; nor is it necessary. Of all his productions--the produce sometimes of matured thought, but more frequently written with the sole view of procuring temporary relief from pressing want-"The Wanderer" and "The Bastard" are the only poems that survive. These possess merit of a very high order. The Wanderer is, like the character of the writer, made up of detached parts, in which what is noble and beautiful is defaced by what is poor and mean.