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Correctly great, she melts each flinty heart
With equal genius, but superior art.

Ridiculous as this opinion is, it should be remembered that Voltaire and other French critics fell into the same error. The cold marble of Cato' was preferred by them to the living and breathing creations of the myriadminded' magician.

'The Chase,' his great work, Somerville produced in mature age, 'when his ear,' in the language of Johnson, 'was improved to the approbation of blank verse.' To this poem a certain degree of praise must be awarded. It is allowed, by sportsmen, to exhibit the subject in a very intelligent manner, and to create all the interest that the theme is capable of. The author was, however, unfortunate in choosing blank verse as his measure; for every intelligent reader must be satisfied that rhyme would have been much more appropriate for so light and airy a subject. The following is an animated sketch of a morning in Autumn :—

Hail, gentle Dawn! mild, blushing goddess, hail!
Rejoiced I see thy purple mantle spread
O'er half the skies; gems pave thy radiant way,
And orient pearls from every shrub depend.
Farewell, Cleora; here deep sunk in down,
Slumber secure, with happy dreams amused,
Till grateful streams shall tempt thee to receive
Thy early meal, or thy officious maids;
The toilet placed shall urge thee to perform
The important work. Me other joys invite;
The horn sonorous calls, the pack awaked,
Their matins chant, nor brook thy long delay.
My courser hears their voice; see there with ears
And tail erect, neighing, he paws the ground;
Fierce rapture kindles in his reddening eyes,
And boils in every vein. As captive boys
Cowed by the ruling rod and haughty frowns
Of pedagogues severe, from their hard tasks
If once dismissed, no limits can contain
The tumult raised within their little breasts,
But give a loose to all their frolic play;
So from their kennel rush the joyous pack;
A thousand wanton gayeties express
Their inward ecstacy, their pleasing sport
Once more indulged, and liberty restored.
The rising sun that o'er the horizon peeps,
As many colours from their glossy skins
Beaming reflects, as paint the various bow
When April showers descend. Delightful scene!
Where all around is gay; men, horses, dogs;
And in each smiling countenance appears
Fresh blooming health, and universal joy.

The friendship of Addison shed a reflected light on some of his contemporaries, and elevated them, in their own day, to very considerable importance. Tickell, perhaps, shared these advantages to a greater extent than any other.

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THOMAS TICKELL was the son of Reverend Richard Tickell, and was born at Bridekirk, Cumberland, in 1686. In 1701, he became a member of Queen's College, Oxford; and in 1708, he was made master of arts, and years after chosen to a fellowship, to retain which, as he did not enter into holy orders, he obtained a dispensation from the crown. When Addison went to Ireland as secretary, Tickell accompanied him, and was there employed in public business. After his return to London he published a translation of the first book of Homer's Iliad,' which Addison, and Tickell's other friends pronounced to be better than the translation of Pope, which immediately followed. This circumstance led to a breach of friendship between Addison and Pope, which was never afterwards healed. Addison continued to patronize Tickell, made him his under secretary of state, and left him the charge of publishing his works. In 1725, Tickell was made secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland, a place of great honor and trust, and which he continued to hold till his death, which occurred at Bath, on the twenty-third of April, 1740.

As a poet, Tickell possessed great elegance, and tenderness, but he was deficient in variety and force. His Elegy on the death of Addison is considered, by Johnson, one of the most elegant and sublime funeral poems in the language. Steele, however, regarded it as merely 'prose in rhyme.' In our judgment his ballad of Colin and Lucy is worth all his other works together. It possesses the simplicity and pathos of the elder lyrics, without their too frequent coarseness and abrupt transitions. It is with great pleasure, therefore, that we here give it a place :

COLIN AND LUCY.

Of Leinster, famed for maidens fair
Bright Lucy was the grace,

Nor ne'er did Liffy's limpid stream
Reflect so sweet a face.

Till luckless love and pining care

Impaired her rosy hue,

Her coral lips and damask cheeks,
And eyes of glossy blue.

Oh! have you seen a lily pale

When beating rains descend?

So drooped the slow-consuming maid,

Her life was near its end.

By Lucy warned, of flattering swains

Take heed ye easy fair!

Of vengeance due to broken vows,

Ye perjured swains! beware.

Three times all in the dead of night
A bell was heard to ring,
And shrieking, at her window thrice
The raven flapped his wing.

Too well the love-lorn maiden knew
The solemn boding sound,
And thus in dying words bespoke
The virgins, weeping round:

'I hear a voice you can not hear,
Which says I must not stay;
I see a hand you can not see,
Which beckons me away.

By a false heart and broken vows
In early youth I die.

Was I to blame because his bride
Was thrice as rich as I?

Ah Colin! give not her thy vows,
Vows due to me alone;

Nor thou, fond maid! receive his kiss,
Nor think him all thy own.

To-morrow in the church to wed,

Impatient both prepare;

But know, fond maid! and know, false man! That Lucy will be there.

Then bear my eorse, my comrades! bear,

This bridegroom blithe to meet;

He in his wedding trim so gay,

I in my winding sheet.'

She spoke; she died. Her corpse was borne

The bridegroom blithe to meet;

He in his wedding trim so gay,

She in her winding sheet.

Then what were perjured Colin's thoughts?

How were these nuptials kept?

The bridesmen flocked round Lucy dead,
And all the village wept.

Confusion, shame, remorse, despair,

At once his bosom swell;

The damps of death bedewed his brow;

He shook, he groaned, he fell.

From the vain bride, ah! bride no more!

The varying crimson fled,

When stretched before her rival's corpse
She saw her husband dead.

Then to his Lucy's new-made grave
Conveyed by trembling swains,
One mould with her, beneath one sod,
Forever he remains.

Oft at this grave the constant hind
And plighted maid are seen;

With garlands gay and true-love knots

They deck the sacred green.

But, swain foresworn! whoe'er thou art,
This hallowed spot forbear;
Remember Colin's dreadful fate,

And fear to meet him there.

From the 'Elegy' we extract the following lines, which we consider the

best it contains:

Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone,
Sad luxury! to vulgar minds unknown,

Along the walls where speaking marbles show
What worthies form the hallow'd mould below;
Proud names! who once the reins of empire held,
In arms who triumphed, or in arts excelled;
Chiefs graced with scars, and prodigal of blood,
Stern patriots, who for sacred freedom stood;
Just men by whom impartial laws were given,
And saints who taught and led the way to heaven.
Ne'er to these chambers where the mighty rest,
Since their foundation came a noble guest;
Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed

A fairer spirit, or more welcome shade.

In what new region to the just assigned,

What new employments please the embodied mind?
A winged virtue through the ethereal sky,
From world to world unwearied does he fly;
Or curious trace the long laborious maze

Of Heaven's decrees, where wondering angels gaze?
Does he delight to hear bold seraphs tell
How Michael battled, and the dragon fell;
Or, mixed with wilder cherubim, to glow
In hymns of love not ill essayed below?
Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind?
A task well suited to thy gentle mind.
Oh! if sometimes thy spotless form descend,
To me thy aid, thou guardian genius! lend.
When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms,
When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms,
In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart,
And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart;
Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before,
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part no more.
That awful form, which, so the Heavens decree,
Must still be loved, and still deplored by me,
In nightly visions seldom fails to rise,

Or roused by Fancy, meets my waking eyes.

If business calls, or crowded courts invite,

The unblemished statesman seems to strike my sight;

If in the stage I seek to soothe my care,

I meet his soul, which breathes in Cato there;

If pensive to the rural shades I rove,

His step o'ertakes me in the lonely grove;

'T was there of just and good he reasoned strong,
Clear'd some great truth, or raised some serious song;
There patient showed us the wise course to steer,
A candid censor, and a friend severe;

There taught us how to live, and (oh! too high
The price for knowledge) taught us how to die.
Thou hill! whose brow the antique structures grace,
Reared by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race;
Why, once so loved, whene'er thy bower appears,
O'er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears!
How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair,
Thy sloping walks and unpolluted air!
How sweet the glooms beneath thy aged trees,
Thy noontide shadow, and thy evening breeze!
His image thy forsaken bowers restore,
Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more;
No more the summer in thy glooms allayed,
Thy evening breezes, and thy noonday shade.

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