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And scatter with a free, though frugal hand,
Light golden showers of plenty o'er the land;
But tyranny has fixed her empire there,
To check their tender hopes with chilling fear,
And blast the blooming promise of the year.

The spacious animated scene survey,
From where the rolling orb that gives the day,
His sable sons with nearer course surrounds,
To either pole, and life's remotest bounds.
How rude soe'er the exterior form we find,
Howe'er opinion tinge the varied mind,
Alike to all the kind impartial Heaven
The sparks of truth and happiness has given:
With sense to feel, with memory to retain,
They follow pleasure, and they fly from pain;
Their judgment mends the plan their fancy draws,
The event presages, and explores the cause;
The soft returns of gratitude they know,
By fraud elude, by force repel the foe;
While mutual wishes mutual woes endear,
The social smile and sympathetic tear.

Say, then, through ages by what fate confined,
To different climes seem different souls assigned?
Here measured laws and philosophic ease
Fix and improve the polished arts of peace.
There industry and gain their vigils keep,
Command the winds, and tame the unwilling deep.
Here force and hardy deeds of blood prevail;
There languid pleasure sighs in every gale.
Oft o'er the trembling nations from afar
Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of war;
And, where the deluge burst, with sweepy sway,
Their arms, their kings, their gods were rolled

away.

As oft have issued, host impelling host,

The blue-eyed myriads from the Baltic coast,
The prostrate south to the destroyer yields
Her boasted titles, and her golden fields;
With grim delight the brood of winter view
A brighter day, and heavens of azure hue,
Scent the new fragrance of the breathing rose,
And quaff the pendent vintage as it grows.
Proud of the yoke, and pliant to the rod,
Why yet does Asia dread a monarch's nod,
While European freedom still withstands

The encroaching tide that drowns her lessening lands,
And sees far off, with an indignant groan,
Her native plains and empires once her own?
Can opener skies and suns of fiercer flame
O'erpower the fire that animates our frame;
As lamps, that shed at eve a cheerful ray,
Fade and expire beneath the eye of day?
Need we the influence of the northern star
To string our nerves and steel our hearts to war?
And where the face of nature laughs around,
Must sickening virtue fly the tainted ground?
Unmanly thought! what seasons can control,
What fancied zone can circumscribe the soul,
Who, conscious of the source from whence she springs,
By reason's light, on resolution's wings,
Spite of her frail companion, dauntless goes
O'er Lybia's deserts and through Zembla's snows?
She bids each slumbering energy awake,
Another touch, another temper take,
Suspends the inferior laws that rule our clay;
The stubborn elements confess her sway;
Their little wants, their low desires, refine,
And raise the mortal to a height divine.

Not but the human fabric from the birth
Imbibes a flavour of its parent earth.
As various tracts enforce a various toil,
The manners speak the idiom of their soil.
An iron race the mountain cliffs maintain,
Foes to the gentle genius of the plain;
For where unwearied sinews must be found,
With side-long plough to quell the flinty ground,

To turn the torrent's swift-descending flood,
To brave the savage rushing from the wood,
What wonder, if to patient valour trained,
They guard with spirit what by strength they gained?
And while their rocky ramparts round they see,
The rough abode of want and liberty,

(As lawless force from confidence will grow),
Insult the plenty of the vales below?
What wonder, in the sultry climes that spread,
Where Nile, redundant o'er his summer bed,
From his broad bosom life and verdure flings,
And broods o'er Egypt with his watery wings,
If with adventurous oar and ready sail,
The dusky people drive before the gale;
Or on frail floats to neighbouring cities ride,
That rise and glitter o'er the ambient tide.

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WILLIAM MASON.

WILLIAM MASON, the friend and literary executor of Gray, long survived the connection which did him so much honour, but he appeared early as a poet. He was the son of the Rev. Mr Mason, vicar of St. Trinity, Yorkshire, where he was born in 1725. At Pembroke college, Cambridge, he became acquainted with Gray, who assisted him in obtaining his degree of M.A. His first literary production was an attack on the Jacobitism of Oxford, to which Thomas Warton replied in his "Triumph of Isis.' In 1753 appeared his tragedy of Elfrida, 'written,' says Southey, on an artificial model, and in a gorgeous diction, because he thought Shakspeare had precluded all hope of excellence in any other form of drama.' The model of Mason was the Greek drama, and he introduced into his play the classic accompaniment of the chorus. A second drama, Caractacus, is of a higher cast than Elfrida:' more noble and spirited in language, and of more sustained dignity in scenes, situations, and character. Mason also wrote a series of odes on Independence, Memory, Melancholy, and The Fall of Tyranny, in which his gorgeousness of diction swells into extravagance and bombast. His other poetical works are his English Garden, a long descriptive poem in blank verse, extended over four books, and an ode on the Commemoration of the British Revolution, in which he asserts those Whig principles which he steadfastly maintained during the trying period of the American war. As in his dramas Mason had made an innovation on the established taste of the times, he ventured, with equal success, to depart from the practice of English authors, in writing the life of his friend Gray. Instead of presenting a continuous narrative, in which the biographer alone is visible, he incorporated the journals and letters of the poet in chronological order, thus making the subject of the memoir in some degree his own biographer, and enabling the reader to judge more fully and correctly of his situation, thoughts, and feelings. The plan was afterwards adopted by Boswell in his Life of Johnson, and has been sanctioned by subsequent usage, in all cases where the subject is of im portance enough to demand copious information and minute personal details. The circumstances of Mason's life are soon related. After his career at college, he entered into orders, and was appointed one of the royal chaplains. He held the living of Ashton, and was precentor of York cathedral. When politics ran high, he took an active part on the side of the Whigs, but was respected by all parties. He died in 1797.

Mason's poetry cannot be said to be popular, even with poetical readers. His greatest want is simplicity, yet at times his rich diction has a fine effect. In his English Garden,' though verbose and lan

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[From Caractacus.]

Mona on Snowdon calls:
Hear, thou king of mountains, hear;

Hark, she speaks from all her strings:
Hark, her loudest echo rings;
King of mountains, bend thine ear:
Send thy spirits, send them soon,
Now, when midnight and the moon
Meet upon thy front of snow;
See, their gold and ebon rod,
Where the sober sisters nod,

And greet in whispers sage and slow.
Snowdon, mark! 'tis magic's hour,
Now the muttered spell hath power;
Power to rend thy ribs of rock,

And burst thy base with thunder's shock:

But to thee no ruder spell

Shall Mona use, than those that dwell

In music's secret cells, and lie

Steeped in the stream of harmony.
Snowdon has heard the strain:
Hark, amid the wondering grove
Other harpings answer clear,
Other voices meet our ear,
Pinions flutter, shadows move,
Busy murmurs hum around,

Rustling vestments brush the ground;

Round and round, and round they go,

Through the twilight, through the shade,
Mount the oak's majestic head,

And gild the tufted misletoe.

Cease, ye glittering race of light,

Close your wings, and check your flight;
Here, arranged in order due,

Spread your robes of saffron hue;
For lo! with more than mortal fire,
Mighty Mador smites the lyre:
Hark, he sweeps the master-strings;
Listen all-

Epitaph on Mrs Mason, in the Cathedral of Bristol. Take, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear:

Take that best gift which heaven so lately gave: To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care

Her faded form; she bowed to taste the wave, And died! Does youth, does beauty, read the line? Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm? Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine; Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm. Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee;

Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move; And if so fair, from vanity as free;

As firm in friendship, and as fond in love. Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, (Twas even to thee) yet the dread path once trod, Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,

And bids 'tue pure in heart behold their God.'

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH, whose writings range over every department of miscellaneous literature, challenges attention as a poet chiefly for the unaffected ease, grace, and tenderness of his descriptions of rural and domestic life, and for a certain vein of pensive philosophic reflection. His countryman Burke said of himself, that he had taken his ideas of liberty not too high, that they might last him through life. Goldsmith seems to have pitched his poetry in a subdued under tone, that he might luxuriate at will among those images of quiet beauty, comfort, benevolence, and simple pathos, that were most congenial to his own character, his hopes, or his experience. This popular poet was born at Pallas, a small village in the parish of Forney, county of Longford, Ireland, on the 10th of November 1728. He was the sixth of a family of nine children, and his father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, was a poor curate, who eked out the scanty funds which he derived from his profession, by renting and cultivating some land. The poet's father afterwards succeeded to the rectory of Kilkenny West, and removed to the house and farm

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Ruins of the house at Lissoy, where Goldsmith spent
his youth.

of Lissoy, in his former parish. Here Goldsmith's youth was spent, and here he found the materials for his Deserted Village. After a good country education, Oliver was admitted a sizer of Trinity college, Dublin, June 11, 1745. The expense of his education was chiefly defrayed by his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Contarini, an excellent man, son to an Italian of the Contarini family at Venice, and a clergyman of the established church. At college, the poet was thoughtless and irregular, and always in want. His tutor was a man of fierce and brutal passions, and having struck him on one occasion before a party of friends, the poet left college, and wandered about the country for some time in the utmost poverty. His brother Henry clothed and carried him back to college, and on the 27th of February 1749, he was admitted to the degree of B.A. Goldsmith now gladly left the university, and returned to Lissoy.

His father was dead, but he idled away two years among his relations. He afterwards became tutor in the family of a gentleman in Ireland, where he remained a year. His uncle then gave him £50 to study the law in Dublin, but he lost the whole in a gaming house. A second contribution was raised, and the poet next proceeded to Edinburgh, where he continued a year and a-half studying medicine. He then drew upon his uncle for £20, and embarked for Bordeaux. The vessel was driven into Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and whilst there, Goldsmith and his fellow passengers were arrested and put into prison, where the poet was kept a fortnight. It appeared that his companions were Scotsmen, in the French service, and had been in Scotland enlisting soldiers for the French army. Having overcome this most innocent of all his misfortunes, he is represented as having immediately proceeded to Leyden; but this part of his biography has lately got a new turn from the inquiries of a gentleman whose book is quoted below,* according to which it would appear to have been now, instead of four years later, that Goldsmith acted as usher of Dr Milner's school at Peckham, in the neighbourhood of London. The tradition of the school is, that he was extremely good-natured and playful, and advanced his pupils more by conversation than by book-tasks. On the supposition of this being the true account of Goldsmith's 25th year, we may presume that he next went to Leyden, and there made the resolution to travel over the Continent in spite of all pecuniary deficiencies. He stopped some time at Louvain, in Flanders, at Antwerp, and at Brussels. In France, he is said, like George Primrose, in his Vicar of Wakefield, to have occasionally earned a night's lodging and food by playing on his flute.

How often have I led thy sportive choir,
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire !
Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew ;
And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still,
But mocked all tune, and marred the dancer's skill,
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour.

Traveller.

Scenes of this kind formed an appropriate school for the poet. He brooded with delight over these pictures of humble primitive happiness, and his imagination loved to invest them with the charms of poetry. Goldsmith afterwards visited Germany and the Rhine. From Switzerland he sent the first sketch of the Traveller' to his brother. The loftier charms of nature in these Alpine scenes seems to have had no permanent effect on the character or direction of his genius. He visited Florence, Verona, Venice, and stopped at Padua some months, where he is supposed to have taken his medical degree. In 1756 the poet reached England, after two years of wandering, lonely, and in poverty, yet buoyed up by dreams of hope and fame. Many a hard struggle he had yet to encounter! His biographers represent him as now becoming usher at Dr Milner's school, a portion of his history which we have seen reason to place at an earlier period. However this may be, he is soon after found contributing to the Monthly Review. He was also some time assistant to a chemist. A college friend, Dr Sleigh, enabled him to commence practice as a humble physician in Bankside, Southwark; but his chief support arose from contributions to the periodical literature

*Collections Illustrative of the Geology, History, Antiquities, and Associations of Camberwell. By Douglas Allport. Camberwell: 1841.

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of the day. In 1758 he presented himself at Surgeons Hall for examination as an hospita! mate, with the view of entering the army or navy but he had the mortification of being rejected as unqualified. That he might appear before the examining surgeon suitably dressed, Goldsmith obtained a new suit of clothes, for which Griffiths, publisher of the Monthly Review, became security. The clothes were immediately to be returned when the purpose was served, or the debt was to be discharged. Poor Goldsmith, having failed in his object, and probably distressed by urgent want, pawned the clothes. The publisher threatened, and the poet replied-'I know of no misery but a gaol, to which my own imprudences and your letter seem to point. I have seen it inevitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens! request it as a favour-as a favour that may prevent somewhat more fatal. I have been some years struggling with a wretched being-with all that contempt and indigence brings with it-with all those strong passions which make contempt insupportable. What, then, has a gaol that is formidable?' Such was the almost hopeless condition, the deep despair, of this imprudent but amiable author, who has added to the delight of millions, and to the glory of English literature.

Henceforward the life of Goldsmith was that of a man of letters. He lived solely by his pen. Besides numerous contributions to the Monthly and Critical Reviews, the Lady's Magazine, the British Magazine, &c., he published an Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe (1759), his admirable Chinese Letters, afterwards published with the title of The Citizen of the World, a Life of Beau Nash, and the History of England in a series of letters from a nobleman to his son. The latter was highly successful, and was popularly attributed to Lord Chesterfield. In December 1764 appeared his poem of The Traveller, the chief corner-stone of his fame, 'without one bad line,' as has been said; without one of Dryden's careless verses.' Charles Fox pronounced it one of the finest poems in the English language; and Dr Johnson (then numbered among Goldsmith's friends) said that the merit of 'The Traveller' was so well established, that Mr Fox's praise could not augment it, nor his censure diminish it. The periodical critics were unanimous in its praise. In 1766 he published his exquisite novel, The Vicar of Wakefield, which had been written two years before, and sold to Newberry the bookseller, to discharge a pressing debt. His comedy of The Good-Natured Man was produced in 1767, his Roman History next year, and The Deserted Village in 1770. The latter was as popular as The Traveller,' and speedily ran through a number of editions. In 1773, Goldsmith's comedy, She Stoops to Conquer, was brought out at Covent Garden theatre with inmense applause. He was now at the summit of his fame and popularity. The march had been long and toilsome, and he was often nearly fainting by the way; but his success was at length complete. His name stood among the foremost of his contemporaries; his works brought him in from £1000 to £1800 per annum. Difficulty and distress, however, still clung to him: poetry had found him poor at first, and she kept him so. From heedless profusion and extravagance, chiefly in dress, and from a benevolence which knew no limit while his funds lasted, Goldsmith was scarcely ever free from debt. The gaming table also presented irresistible attractions. He hung loosely on society, without wife or domestic tie; and his early habits and experience were ill calculated to teach him strict conscientiousness or regularity. He continued to write task-work for the booksellers,

and produced a ' History of England' in four volumes. This was succeeded by a 'History of Greece' in two volumes, for which he was paid £250. He had contracted to write a History of Animated Nature' in eight volumes, at the rate of a hundred guineas for each volume; but this work he did not live to complete, though the greater part was finished in his own attractive and easy manner. In March 1774, he was attacked by a painful complaint (dysuria)| caused by close study, which was succeeded by a nervous fever. Contrary to the advice of his apothecary, he persisted in the use of James's powders, a medicine to which he had often had recourse; and gradually getting worse, he expired in strong convulsions on the 4th of April. The death of so popular an author, at the age of forty-five, was a shock equally to his friends and the public. The former knew his sterling worth, and loved him with all his foibles-his undisguised vanity, his national proneness to blundering, his thoughtless extravagance, his credulity, and his frequent absurdities. Under these ran a current of generous benevolence, of enlightened zeal for the happiness and improvement of mankind, and of manly independent feeling. He died £2000 in debt: Was ever poet so trusted before!' exclaimed Johnson. His remains were interred in the Temple burying ground, and a monument erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey, next the grave of Gay, whom he somewhat resembled in character, and far surpassed in genius.

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The plan of The Traveller' is simple, yet comprehensive and philosophical. The poet represents himself as sitting among Alpine solitudes, looking down

on a hundred realms

Lakes, forests, cities, plains extending wide,

The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride. He views the whole with delight, yet sighs to think that the hoard of human bliss is so small, and he wishes to find some spot consigned to real happiness,

where his worn soul'

Might gather bliss to see his fellows blessed. But where is such a spot to be found? The natives of each country think their own the best-the pa

triot boasts

His first, best country, ever is at home.

If nations are compared, the amount of happiness in
each is found to be about the same; and to illustrate
this position, the poet describes the state of manners
and government in Italy, Switzerland, France, Hol-
land, and England. In general correctness and
beauty of expression, these sketches have never been
surpassed. The politician may think that the poet
ascribes too little importance to the influence of
government on the happiness of mankind, seeing
that in a despotic state the whole must depend on
the individual character of the governor; yet in the
cases cited by Goldsmith, it is difficult to resist his
conclusions; while his short sententious reasoning
is relieved and elevated by bursts of true poetry.
His character of the men of England used to draw
tears from Dr Johnson :-

Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great.

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,

I see the lords of human kind pass by;

Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,

By forms unfashioned, fresh from nature's hand.
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imagined right, above control,

While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man.

heightening the effect of his pictures. In the following quotation, the rich scenery of Italy, and the effeminate character of its population, are placed in striking juxtaposition with the rugged mountains of Switzerland and their hardy natives.

[Italians and Swiss Contrasted.]

Far to the right, where Apennine ascends,
Bright as the summer, Italy extends;
Its uplands sloping deck the mountain's side,
Woods over woods in gay theatric pride;
While oft some temple's mouldering tops between,
With venerable grandeur mark the scene.

Could nature's bounty satisfy the breast,
The sons of Italy were surely blest.
Whatever fruits in different climes were found,
That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground;
Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear,
Whose bright succession decks the varied year;
Whatever sweets salute the northern sky
With vernal lives, that blossom but to die;
These, here disporting, own the kindred soil,
Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil;
While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand,
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land.

But small the bliss that sense alone bestows,
And sensual bliss is all the nation knows.
In florid beauty groves and fields appear,
Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.
Contrasted faults through all his manners reign:
Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain;
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue;
And even in penance planning sins anew.
All evils here contaminate the mind,
That opulence departed leaves behind;
For wealth was theirs, not far removed the date,
When commerce proudly flourished through the state;
At her command the palace learned to rise,
Again the long-fallen column sought the skies;
The canvass glowed beyond even nature warm,
The pregnant quarry teemed with human form,
Till, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Commerce on other shores displayed her sail;
While nought remained of all that riches gave,
But towns unmanned, and lords without a slave;
And late the nation found with fruitless skill,
Its former strength was but plethoric ill.

Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supplied
By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride;
From these the feeble heart and long-fallen mind
An easy compensation seem to find.
Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp arrayed,
The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade;
Processions formed for piety and love,
A mistress or a saint in every grove.
By sports like these are all their cares beguiled,
The sports of children satisfy the child;
Each nobler aim, repressed by long control,
Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul;
While low delights, succeeding fast behind,
In happier meanness occupy the mind:
As in those domes, where Caesars once bore sway,
Defaced by time and tottering in decay,
There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed;
And, wondering man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.

My soul turn from them, turn we to survey
Where rougher climes a nobler race display,
Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread;

No product here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword;
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,

Goldsmith was a master of the art of contrast in But winter lingering chills the lap of May;

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