ON JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART, OB. 1854.131 Do what thou canst-to-day hath eagle's wings; 132 ON WORDSWORTH, OB. 1850, ÆT. 80,1 AT GRASMERE. BLEST be the Church, that watching o'er the needs mens,' established him on our library shelves as a prose writer, and is the best of his unrhymed-not unpoeticalworks." His prose biographies and other works possess much interest, and with his poetry "will live so long as wood grows, and water runs-sacred as a cherished part of our thoughts, our language, and ourselves." 131 Eminent in his day for his contributions to "Blackwood's Magazine," and the "Quarterly Review." In biography and biographical sketches he was particularly excellent. See his Lives of Scott and Theodore Hook. 132 Said to be one of England's greatest metaphysical poets, who succeeded Southey as poet-laureate, and obtained a pension for his writings, of 300l. per annum. To Wilson, Coleridge, De Quincy, Southey, and Wordsworth, the term "Lake-school" was applied by the reviewers who sneered at their performances. "Wordsworth has no fancy, no wit, no humour, little descriptive power, no dramatic power, great occasional elegance, with continual rusticity and baldness of allusion." "6 'His style is natural and severe, and his versification sonorous and expressive." Whose virtue changes to a Christian flower, Looks on, and grace descendeth from above. Recall the wandering soul to sympathy With what man hopes from heaven, yet fears from earth. W. Wordsworth. LINES INSCRIBED UPON A STONE RECENTLY PLACED (1856) BY THE LATE EArl of NE'ER to these chambers where the mighty rest, 133 English literature is greatly indebted to Addison for his humorous contributions to the "Tatler," " "Spectator," "Guardian," and "Freeholder." He rendered himself eminent, too, by his Latin compositions, which are both vigorous and elegant. "Whoever wishes," says Dr. Johnson, "to attain an English style, familiar, but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison." "His poetry is polished and pure; the product of a mind too judicious to commit faults, but not sufficiently vigorous to attain excellence." Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed 134 T. Tickell.135 The final resting-place of Professor John Wilson (Christopher North), author of the "Noctes Ambrosianæ," poems, 66 The City of the Plague," "Isle of Palms," and many political articles and literary criticisms which appeared in " Blackwood's Magazine," of which periodical he was one of the founders, exactly faces the tomb of Lord Francis Jeffrey, for many years the editor of the "Edinburgh Review;" which he, in conjunction with Lord Brougham, Sidney Smith, and Horner, started in 1802. The tombs of these justly celebrated men are placed in a very fine and prominent situation of the most picturesque of our modern cemeteries; and so near each other that slightly to alter the words of Sir W. Scott with reference to the tombs of Pitt and Fox in Westminster Abbey "" 134 Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax, the patron and friend of Addison, "the least of the minor poets—one of 'the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease.' He joined with Prior in "The City Mouse and the Country Mouse," a burlesque of Dryden's "Hind and Panther." 135 There is not a more sublime, or more elegant funeralpoem to be found in the whole compass of English literature than Tickell's Elegy on Addison's Death."" P Drop upon Jeffrey's tomb the tear- 66 "Blackwood's Magazine," the representative of Scotch Toryism, as the Quarterly Review" is that of the Tory party in England, had for some years Wilson as its chief writer-a man of extraordinary talent and "eccentric genius," as Scott said of him, "whose writings obtained for this outlet of Toryism a world-wide celebrity; and who, as critic, poet, essayist, and author of 'Noctes Ambrosianæ,' occupies a distinguished position amongst Scotland's most distinguished sons." For twenty-six years Jeffrey edited and contributed very largely to the "Edinburgh Review." He was a man of great intellectual powers, whose contributions to this celebrated periodical were unquestionably dictated by honesty of purpose; but many of them, evincing the utmost severity of criticism, were, no doubt, eminently unjust-to Wordsworth and his kindred authors of the "Lake School" especially. As an orator he was rapid and fluent―of fine conversational powers; and, spite of his bitter stinging criticisms, and apparent personal hostility to his opponents, he possessed great goodness of heart and domestic amiability. In his latter years, however, when past the psalmist-appointed term of life, he grew more than ever tender of heart and amiable, praised nursery songs, patronised mediocrities, and wrote letters of almost childish gentleness of expression. It seemed to be the natural strain of his character let loose from some stern responsibility, which had made him sharp and critical through all his 66 former life." It is to the honour of our age that the loss of such men as Walter Scott, Lockhart, Macaulay, Wilson, Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, Coleridge, Southey, is deplored, not only in England, but wherever there are men who know how to honour noble talent, unblemished integrity of life, and the "Love of liberty based upon the laws." ON SIR CRESSWELL CRESSWELL.136 HE oft decreed divorce 'twixt man and wife; Rev. 7. H. C. Wright. ANTICIPATORY DIRGE FOR PROFESSOR BUCKLAND, MOURN, Ammonites, mourn o'er his funeral urn, ye must grace no more; Gneiss, granite, and slate-he settled your date, And his ye must now deplore. 136 Divorce, it is well known, was permitted by the Mosaic law. The first instance among the Romans occurred B.C. 331, and the custom afterwards became common. The first instance of a divorce effected in England by Act of Parliament without the previous consent of the spiritual court, was that of the notorious Countess of Macclesfield, who was separated from her husband April 2, 1698. She was the reputed mother of Richard Savage, the poet, the friend of Dr. Johnson, and afterwards married to Colonel Brett. In 1798 Lord Chancellor Loughborough obtained the passing of a series of re |