On his return home, in 1740, Dyer published another poem, The Ruins of Rome, in blank verse, soon after which he entered the church, and obtained, successively, the livings of Calthrop, in Leicestershire, of Conningsby, in Huntingdonshire, and of Belchford and Kirkby, in Lincolnshire. He published The Fleece, his longest poetical work, in 1757, and died on the twentyfourth of July in the following year. The poetical pictures of Dyer are haply miniatures of nature, correctly drawn, beautifully colored, and grouped with the taste of an artist. His moral reflections arise naturally out of his subject, and are never intrusive. All bear the evidence of a kind and gentle heart, and a true poetical fancy. 'Grongar Hill' is so very beautiful a performance that we can not refrain from introducing the entire poem. GRONGAR HILL. Silent nymph, with curious eye, Come, with all thy various hues, Come, and aid thy sister Muse; Grongar Hill invites my song, Draw the landscape bright and strong; Sat upon a flowery bed, With my hand beneath my head; While strayed my eyes o'er Towy's flood, Over mead, and over wood, From house to house, from hill to hill, Till contemplation had her fill. About his chequered sides I wind, And leave his brooks and meads behind, And vistas shooting beams of day: Wide and wider spreads the vale, As circles on a smooth canal: The mountains round, unhappy fate, Withdraw their summits from the skies, And lessen as the others rise: Still the prospect wider spreads Now I gain the mountain's brow, Old castles on the cliffs arise, Below me trees unnumbered rise, The gloomy pine, the poplar blue, The slender fir, that taper grows, The sturdy oak, with broad-spread boughs. And beyond the purple grove, Haunt of Phillis, queen of love! Gaudy as the opening dawn, Lies a long and level lawn, On which a dark hill, steep and high, His sides are clothed with waving wood, And with her arms from falling keeps: So both a safety from the wind On mutual dependence find. 'Tis now the raven's bleak abode; And level lays the lofty brow, Has seen this broken pile complete, Big with the vanity of state; But transient is the smile of fate! A little rule, a little sway, A sunbeam in a winter's day, Is all the proud and mighty have And see the rivers, how they run Through woods, and meads, in shade and sun, Ever charming, ever new, When will the landscape tire the view! See on the mountain's southern side, A step, methinks, may pass the stream, 'Tis thus the busy beat the air, And misers gather wealth and care. Now, even now, my joys run high, As on the mountain turf I lie; And with music fill the sky, Now, even now, my joys run high. Be full, ye courts; be great who will; Seek her on the marble floor: In vain you search, she is not there; Within the groves of Grongar Hill. DAVID MALLET, or MALLOCK, was the son of an innkeeper, at Crieff, in Perthshire, and was born in 1700. He was educated at Aberdeen College, and was afterwards received as tutor, without salary, in the family of Mr. Home, of Dreghorn, near Edinburgh. He next obtained a similar situation, with a salary of thirty pounds a year, in the family of the Duke of Montrose. In 1723, he went to London with the duke's family, and the next year his ballad of William and Margaret appeared in 'The Plain Dealer,' a periodical of the day. He soon became intimate with Young, Pope, and other eminent men of that period, to whom his assiduous attentions, his winning manners, and literary taste, rendered his society agreeable. He was, however, a man without principle; and when Dr. Johnson, therefore, said that Mallet was the only Scot whom Scotchmen did not commend, he paid a just compliment to the virtue and integrity of the natives of that country. In 1733, he published a satire on Bentley, inscribed to Pope, entitled Verbal Criticism, in which he characterizes the venerable scholar as In error obstinate, in wrangling loud, Mallet was soon after appointed secretary to the Prince of Wales, and in 1740, produced, in conjunction with Thomson, the Masque of Alfred, in honor of the birthday of the Princess Augusta. A fortunate marriage, about this time, with the daughter of the steward of Lord Carlisle, placed him in possession of a fortune of ten thousand pounds. To gratify Lord Bolingbroke, he, in his preface to the 'Patriot King,' shamefully abused the memory of Pope, and Bolingbroke rewarded his baseness by bequeathing to him the whole of his works in manuscript. When the English Government became unpopular, in consequence of the defeat they sustained at Minorca, Mallet was employed to defend them; and under the signature of a Plain Man, he published an address imputing cowardice to Byng, the admiral of the fleet. The result was that the admiral was shot, and Mallet was penVOL. II.-U sioned. On the death of the Duchess of Marlborough, it was found that she had left a thousand pounds to Glover, the author of 'Leonidas,' and Mallet, jointly, on condition that they should draw up, from the family papers, a life of the great duke. A stipulation in the will, that the work, before publication, should be submitted to the Earl of Chesterfield, so offended Glover that he would have nothing to do with it. Mallet, however, consented to undertake the task, received the money, and for years pretended to be busy about it; but at his death it was found that the first line had not been written. In his latter days he held the lucrative situation of Keeper of the Book of Entries for the Port of London. His death occurred on the twenty-first of April, 1765. Besides the works already mentioned, Mallet was the author of two other poems, Amyntor and Theodora, and The Excursion, the latter of which was written in the style of Thomson's 'Seasons.' The defects of Thomson's style are servilely copied; some of his epithets and expressions are also borrowed; but there is no approach to his redeeming graces and beauties. He also wrote some theatrical pieces, which, though partially successful on their representation, are now totally forgotten. His fame, as an author, rests exclusively on the ballad of ' William and Margaret;' and it there worthily rests; for in the opinion of all critics, it is one of the finest compositions of the kind in the language. Sir Walter Scott conceived that Mallet had imitated an old Scottish tale to be found in Allen Ramsay's 'Tea-Table Miscellany,' beginning There came a ghost to Margaret's door. The resemblance is striking; though Mallet confessed only to a single stanza. The whole ballad is so very fine that we shall not withhold any part of it. WILLIAM AND MARGARET. 'Twas at the silent solemn hour, Her face was like an April morn So shall the fairest face appear When youth and years are flown: Her bloom was like the springing flower, That sips the silver dew; The rose was budded in her cheek, Just opening to the view. |