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,
Who, the purple evening, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man ;
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet sings;
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale;

Come, with all thy various hues,

Come, and aid thy sister Muse;
Now, while Phoebus, riding high,
Gives lustre to the land and sky!

Grongar Hill invites my song,

Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells,
Sweetly musing, Quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whose silent shade,
For the modest Muses made;
So oft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rill,

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 groves, and grottos where I lay,

And vistas shooting beams of day:

Wide and wider spreads the vale,

As circles on a smooth canal:

The mountains round, unhappy fate,
Sooner or later, of all height,

Withdraw their summits from the skies,

And lessen as the others rise:

Still the prospect wider spreads
Adds a thousand woods and meads;
Still it widens, widens still,
And sinks the newly-risen hill.

Now I gain the mountain's brow,
What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapours intervene,
But the gay, the open scene,
Does the face of nature show,
In all the hues of heaven's bow;
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.

Old castles on the cliffs arise,
Proudly towering in the skies!
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires!
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain heads!
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks!

Below me trees unnumbered rise,
Beautiful in various dyes:

The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,

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,
Holds and charms the wandering eye!
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,

His sides are clothed with waving wood,
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That cast an awful look below;
Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,

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;
'Tis now the apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds,
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there falls
Huge heaps of hoary mouldering walls.
Yet time has seen, that lifts the low,

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
Between the cradle and the grave.

And see the rivers, how they run

Through woods, and meads, in shade and sun,
Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,
Wave succeeding wave, they go
A various journey to the deep,
Like human life, to endless sleep!
Thus is nature's vesture wrought,
To instruct our wandering thought;
Thus she dresses green and gay,
To disperse our cares away.

Ever charming, ever new,

When will the landscape tire the view!
The fountain's fall, the river's flow,
The woody valleys, warm and low;
The windy summit, wild and high,
Roughly rushing on the sky!
The pleasant seat, the ruined tower,
The naked rock, the shady bower;
The town and village, dome and farm,
Each give each a double charm
As pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.

See on the mountain's southern side,
Where the prospect opens wide,
Where the evening gilds the tide,
How close and small the hedges lie!
What streaks of meadows cross the eye!

A step, methinks, may pass the stream,
So little distant dangers seem;
So we mistake the future's face,
Eyed through hope's deluding glass;
As yon summits soft and fair,
Clad in colours of the air,
Which to those who journey near,
Barren, brown, and rough appear;
Still we tread the same coarse way,
The present 's still a cloudy day.
O may I with myself agree,
And never covet what I see!
Content me with an humble shade,
My passions tamed, my wishes laid;
For while our wishes wildly roll,
We banish quiet from the soul:

'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;
While the wanton zephyr sings,
And in the vale perfumes his wings;
While the waters murmur deep,
While the shepherd charms his sheep,
While the birds unbounded fly,

And with music fill the sky,

Now, even now, my joys run high.

Be full, ye courts; be great who will;
Search for peace with all your skill;
Open wide the lofty door,

Seek her on the marble floor:

In vain you search, she is not there;
In vain you search the domes of care!
Grass and flowers Quiet treads,
On the meads and mountain heads,
Along with Pleasure close allied,
Ever by each other's side:
And often by the murmuring rill,
Hears the thrush, while all is still,

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,
For trifles eager, positive, and proud;
Deep in the darkness of dull authors bred,
With all their refuse lumbered in his head.

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,
Where night and morning meet;
In glided Margaret's grimly ghost
And stood at William's feet.

Her face was like an April morn
Clad in a wintry cloud;
And clay-cold was her lily hand
That held her sable shroud.

So shall the fairest face appear

When youth and years are flown:
Such is the robe that kings must wear
When death has reft their crown.

Her bloom was like the springing flower,

That sips the silver dew;

The rose was budded in her cheek,

Just opening to the view.