Lay, like rough diamonds in the mine, unknown,
By all the sons of folly trampled on,

Till your kind hand unveil'd her lovely face,
And gave her vigour to exert her rays.

Happy old man! whose worth all mankind knows,
Except himself; who charitably shows,

The ready road to virtue and to praise,
The road to many long and happy days;
The noble arts of gen'rous piety,
And how to compass true felicity;
Hence did he learn the art of living well;
The bright Thealma was his oracle:
Inspir'd by her he knows no anxious cares,
Through near a century of pleasant years
Easy he lives, and cheerful shall he die;
Well spoken of by late posterity,

As long as Spenser's noble flame shall burn,
And deep devotions throng about his urn:

dued plains in terrific sublimity: it rather resembles the meandering stream and glides with silvery brightness through sheltered vales and sunny glades, winding and lingering amidst scenes of sequestered loveliness, or with gentle ripples expanding its placid waters in dimpling beauty to the sun, embodying and reflecting every evanescent hue of heaven, and bidding nature look as fresh and fair as

if the world and love were young,
And truth on every shepherd's tongue."
As long as Chalkhill's venerable name
With nobler emulation shall inflame
Ages to come, and swell the rolls of fame.
Your memory shall for ever be secure,

And long beyond our short liv'd praise endure;

As Phidias in Minerva's shield did live,

And shar'd that immortality he alone could give."

The classic reader, when he recollects the story of Phidias will easily acknowledge the propriety of the encomium passed on Walton, who secured immortal fame to himself, while he conferred it upon others.

That divine artist, having finished his famous statue of Minerva, with the most consummate exquisiteness of skill, afterward impressed his own image so deeply on her buckler, that it could not be effaced without destroying the whole work.

The beauties of Thealma and Clearchus and the character of the author, are not unaptly described in the editors own language. He intimates in the Preface, that "the reader will find what the title declares, a Pastoral History, in smooth and easy verse; and will find in it many hopes and fears finely painted and feelingly expressed. And he will find the first so often disappointed, when fullest of desire and expectation; and the latter so often, so strangely, and so unexpectedly relieved by an unforeseen Providence, as may beget in him wonder and amazement." He adds, that "the reader will here also meet with passions heightened by easy and fit descriptions of joy and sorrow; and find also such various events and rewards of innocent truth and undissembled

honesty, as is like to leave in him (if he be a good-natured reader) more sympathizing and virtuous impressions than ten times so much time spent in impertinent, critical, and needless disputes about religion." Chalkhill died before he had perfected even the fable of his poem; and Walton assures us 'was a man generally known in his time, and as well beloved; for he was humble and obliging in his behaviour, a gentleman, a scholar, very innocent and prudent; and indeed his whole life was useful, quiet, and virtuous.39 So amiable were the manners, and so truly excellent the character of all those, whom Isaac Walton honoured with his regard.

When Leoniceni, one of the most profound scholars in Italy, in the fifteenth century, was

3 The indefatigable Ritson in his Bibliographia Poetica, 1802, 8vo. p. 155. has inserted Chalkhill's name in the list of poets of the sixteenth century, but with no further authority than Walton's assertion in the pages of his Complete Angler.

Walton dying in 1683, the same year that Thealma and Clearchus appeared, occasioned his being considered as the author, that doubt being at length solved, the date 1678 affixed to the Preface seems to be the only point which can excite controversy, and on that it might be observed, that it may not be at all allusive to the time of publication, but as indicating the time, when the poem was placed into Walton's hands, by the author, the infirmities of his advanced age warning him of his speedy departure from all sublunary affairs.

asked by what art he had, through a period of ninety years, preserved a sound memory, perfect senses, an upright body, and a vigorous health, he answered, "by innocence, serenity of mind, and temperance." Walton, having uniformly enjoyed that happy tranquility, which is the natural concomitant of virtue, came to the grave in a full age, "like as a shock of corn cometh in his

season."

"So would I live, such gradual death to find,
Like timely fruit, not shaken by the wind,
But ripely dropping from the sapless bough;
And dying, nothing to myself would owe.
Thus, daily changing, with a duller taste
Of less'ning joys, I by degrees would waste;
Still quitting ground by unperceiv'd decay,
And steal myself from life, and melt away."

DRYDEN.

He died during the time of the great frost, on the 15th day of December, 1683, at Winchester, in the ebendal house of Dr. William Hawkins, his son-in-law, whom he loved as his own son. It was his express desire that his burial might be near the place of his death, privately, and free from any ostentation, or charge, and he was interred in Prior Silksteed's chapel, within the Cathedral. The annexed engraving points out the