don, and was a great promoter of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures. He died at his house in May-fair, after a long and ex. cruciating illness, occasioned by the stone. He was a zealous pupil of the Shaftesbury school; and published, besides his Poems, a Life of Socrates, Letters on Taste, and Epistles to the Great from Aristippus in retirement.

SONG.

Away! let nought to love displeasing,

My Winifreda, move your care;
Let nought delay the heavenly blessing,

Nor squeamish pride, nor gloomy fear.

What though no grants of royal donors

With pompous titles grace our blood,
We'll shine in more substantial honours,

And, to be noble, we'll be good,

Our name, while virtue thus we tender,

Will sweetly sound where'er 'tis spoke;
And all the great oncs, they shall wonder

How they respect such little folk.

What though, from Fortune's lavish bounty,

No mighty treasures we possess ;
We'll find, within our pittance, plenty,

And be content without excess.

· Sţill shall each kind returning season

Sufficient for our wishes give;
For we will live a life of reason,

And that's the only life to live.

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Through youth and age, in love excelling,

We'll hand in hand together tread; Sweet-smiling peace shall crown our dwelling,

And babes, sweet-smiling babes, our bed.

How should I love the pretty creatures,

While round my knees they fondly clung! To see them look their mother's features,

To hear them lisp their mother's tongue! And when with envy Time transported,

Shali' think to rob us of our joys; You'll in your girls again be courted,

And I'll go wooing in my boys.

JAMES MERRICK.

BORN 1720.-DIED 1769.

James MERRICK was a fellow of Trinity college, Oxford, where Lord North was one of his pupils. He entered into holy orders, but never could engage in parochial duty from being subject to excessive pains in his head. He was an eminent Grecian, and translated Tryphiodorus at the age of twenty. Bishop Lowth characterized him as one of the best of men, and most eminent of scholars. His most important poetical work is his version of the Psalms ; besides which he published poems on sacred subjects.

THE WISH.

How short is life's uncertain space.!

Alas! how quickly done!
How, swift the wild precarious chace !
And yet how difficult the race!
How
very

hard to run !

Youth stops at first its wilful ears

To wisdom's prudent voice;
Till now arriv'd to riper years,
Experienc'd age, worn out with cares,

Repents its earlier choice.

What though its prospects now appear

So pleasing and refin'd;
Yet groundless hope, and anxious fear,
By turns the busy moments share,

And prey upon the mind.

Since then false joys our fancy cheat

With hopes of real bliss;
Ye guardian pow'rs that rule my fate,
The only wish that I create

Is all compriz'd in this:

May I, through life's uncertain tide,

Be still from pain exempt!
May all my wants be still supplied,
My state too low t’ admit of pride,

And yet abovë contempt!

But should your providence divine

A greater bliss intend;
May all those blessings you design,
(If e'er those blessings shall be mine)

Be center'd in a friend!

WILLIAM FALCONER.

BORN 1730.-DIED 1769.

WILLIAM Falconer was the son of a barber in Edinburgh, and went to sea at an early age merchant vessel of Leith. He was afterwards mate of a ship that was wrecked in the Levant, and was one of only three out of her crew that were saved, & catastrophe which formed the subject of his future poem. He was for some time in the capacity of a servant to Campbell, the author of Lexiphanes, when purser of a ship. Campbell is said to have discovered in Falconer talents worthy of cultivation, and when the latter distinguished himself as a poet, used to boast that he had been his scholar. What he

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learned from Campbell it is not very easy to ascertain. His education, as he often assured Governor Hunter, had been confined to reading, writing, and a little arithmetic, though in the course of his life he picked up some acquaintance with the French, Spanish, and Italian languages. In these his countryman was not likely to have much assisted him; but he might have lent him books, and possibly instructed him in the use of figures. Falconer published his Shipwreck in 1762, and by the favour of the Duke of York, to whom it was dedicated, obtained the appointment of a midshipman in the Royal George, and afterwards that of purser in the Glory frigate. He soon afterwards married a Miss Hicks, an accomplished and beautiful woman, the daughter of the surgeon of Sheerness-yard. At the peace of 1763

on the point of being reduced to distressed circumstances by his ship being laid up in ordinary at Chatham, when, by the friendship of Commissioner Hanway, who ordered the cabin of the Glory to be fitted up for his residence, he enjoyed for some time a retreat for study without expense or embarrassment. Here he employed himself in compiling his Marine Dictionary, which appeared in 1769, and has been always highly spoken of by those who are capable of estimating its merits. He embarked also in the politics of the day, as a poetical antagonist to Churchill, but with little advantage to his memory. Before the publication of his Marine Dictionary he had left his retreat at Chatham for a

he was

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