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full activity. To have sat or even reclined looking at the peach would have been nothing. An anecdote not less characteristic is told by Johnson. The Countess of Hertford, to whom, as a dabbler in verse and a patron of poets, he had been advised, while he had few friends, to inscribe his SPRING, was in the habit of impressing some unfortunate poet into her service every summer to assist her studies and admire her verses; and Thomson one season received this honour, and went into attendance to do duty on her Ladyship and the muses. The poet, however, had a much stronger natural inclination to assist Lord Hertford and his friends in their jovial carouses than to listen to the verses of her Ladyship, who never afterwards repeated the invitation.

Thomson was buried in Richmond churchyard, and a monument is erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey. A monument as imperishable remains in the exquisite lines of Collins, who, with genius as high, met a fate so much less fortunate.

FROM WINTER.

'Tis done! dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year. How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!

How dumb the tuneful! horror wide extends
His desolate domain. Behold, fond man!
See here thy pictur'd life; pass some few years
Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent
strength,

Thy sober Autumn fading into age,

And pale concluding Winter comes at last,

And shuts the scene.

Ah! whither now are fled

Those dreams of greatness? those unsolid hopes Of happiness? those longings after fame?

Those restless cares? those busy bustling days? Those gay-spent festive nights? those veering thoughts,

Lost between good and ill, that shar'd thy life?
All now are vanish'd! Virtue sole survives,
Immortal, never-failing friend of man,

His guide to happiness on high. And see!
'Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth
Of heaven and earth! awakening Nature hears
The new-creating word, and starts to life,
In every heighten'd form, from pain and death
For ever free. The great eternal scheme
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads,
To Reason's eye refin'd clears up apace.

Ye vainly wise! ye blind presumptuous! now
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power
And Wisdom oft arraign'd: see now the cause,
Why unassuming Worth in secret liv'd,
And died neglected: why the good man's share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul:
Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd
In starving solitude; while Luxury,

In palaces, lay straining her low thought
To form unreal wants: why heaven-born Truth,
And Moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of Superstition's scourge: why licens'd Pain,
That cruel spoiler, that embosom'd foe,
Imbitter'd all our bliss. Ye good distress'd!
Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up a while,
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deem'd evil, is no more:
The storms of Wintry time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded Spring encircle all.

PHILIP DODDRIDGE.

BORN 1702-DIED 1751.

THIS celebrated divine, the author of many excellent and popular religious works, and of a few hymns, was a minister and tutor in Northampton. Intense application to study brought on pulmonary consumption, of which he died at Lisbon.

THE SABBATH.

LORD of the Sabbath, hear our vows
On this thy day, in this thine house;
And own, as grateful sacrifice,
The songs that from the desert rise.

Thine earthly Sabbaths, Lord, we love :
But there's a nobler rest above;
To that our lab'ring souls aspire
With ardent hope and strong desire.

No more fatigue, no more distress,
Nor sin, nor death, shall reach the place;
No tears shall mingle with the songs
That warble from immortal tongues.

No rude alarms of raging foes-
No cares to break the long repose-
No midnight shade, no clouded sun-
But sacred, high, eternal noon.

O long-expected day! begin;

Dawn on these realms of wo and sin;

Fain would we leave this weary road,
And sleep in death to rest with God.

JOHN WESLEY.

BORN 1703-DIED 1791.

THIS well-known divine was the second son of the rector of Epsworth. At Oxford he and his brother Charles Wesley formed a religious society, to which their contemporaries gave the ludicrous name of Methodists, a name which has since become so formidable. The brothers, who were equally devout and zealous, if not equal in ability, went, in 1735, to Georgia, voluntary missionaries to the Indian tribes. In 1739, the first Methodist congregation was formed by Wesley at Bristol; but his biography is too copious and important to be compressed, This celebrated person, remarkable alike for bodily and mental activity, is calculated to have travelled three hundred thousand miles, and to have preached forty thousand sermons. The life of this intrepid apostle, written by Dr Southey, is one of the most interesting pieces of biography that late years have produced.

THERE REMAINS A REST FOR THE
PEOPLE OF GOD.

LORD, I believe a rest remains

To all thy people known;

A rest where pure enjoyment reigns,

And thou art lov'd alone.

Celestial Spirit, make me know
That I shall enter in ;

Now, Saviour, now thy pow'r bestow,
And wash me from my sin.

Remove this hardness from my heart,
This unbelief remove;

To me the rest of faith impart,
The Sabbath of thy love.

Come, O my Saviour, come away,
Into my soul descend;
No longer from thy creature stay,
My Author and my end.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

BORN 1709-DIED 1784.

THIS distinguished English classical writer was the son of a bookseller in Lichfield. He received a learned education, and became an author by profession. Though more celebrated as a moralist, and a describer of life and manners, than a poet, he has left many excellent verses of the best tendency.

VERSES TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT
LEVET.

CONDEMN'D to Hope's delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts, or slow decline,
Our social comforts drop away.

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