cember, 1732. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, and a chaste monument still points out the spot where his ashes repose.

The works of Gay have not retained the popularity that they once possessed. He has all the licentiousness of Prior, without his elegance. His fables are still, however, the best we possess ; and though they have not the nationality, or rich humor and archness of those of La Fontaine, still the subjects of them are light and pleasing, and the versification, smooth and correct. In the Court of Death he aims at a higher order of poetry than in his fables generally, and marshals his ‘diseases dire' with a strong and gloomy power. Black-Eyed Susan, and the ballad beginning " 'Twas when the seas were roaring,' are full of characteristic tenderness and lyrical melody.

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THE COURT OF DEATH.

Death, on a solemn night of state,
In all his pomp of terror sate :
The attendants of his gloomy reign,
Diseases dire, a ghastly train !
Crowd the vast court. With hollow tone,
A voice thus thundered from the throne :

This night our minister we name,
Let every servant speak his claim ;
Merit shall bear this ebon wand.'
All, at the word stretched forth their hand.

Fever, with burning heat possessed,
Advanced, and for the wand addressed:

'I to the weekly bills appeal,
Let those express my fervent zeal ;
On every slight occasion near,
With violence I persevere.'

Next Gout appears with limping pace,
Pleads how he shifts from place to place;
From head to foot how swift he flies,
And every joint and sinew plies ;
Still working when he seems supprest,
A most tenacious stubborn guest.

A haggard spectre from the crew
Crawls forth, and thus àsserts his due:

''Tis I who taint the sweetest joy,
And in the shape of love destroy.
My shanks, sunk eyes, and noseless face,
Prove my pretension to the place.'

Stone urged his overgrowing force;
And next, Consumption's meagre corse,
With feeble voice that scarce was heard,
Broke with short coughs, his suit preferred :

'Let none object my lingering way;
I gain, like Fabius, by delay:
Fatigue and weaken every foe
By long attack, secure though slow.'

Plague represents his rapid power,
Who thinned a nation in an hour.

All spoke their claim, and hoped the wand.
Now expectation hushed the band,
When thus the monarch from the throne:

Merit was ever modest known.
What, no physician speak his right!
None here! but fees their toils requite.
Let then Intemperance take the wand,
Who fills with gold their zealous hand.
You, Fever, Gout, and all the rest
(Whom wary men as foes detest),
Forego your claim. No more pretend ;
Intemperance is esteemed a Friend;
He shares their mirth, their social joys,
And as a courted guest destroys.
The charge on him must justly fall,
Who finds employment for you all.'

BLACK-EYED SUSAN.

All in the downs the fleet was moored,

The streamers waving in the wind,
When black-eyed Susan came aboard,

Oh! where shall I my true love find ?
Tell me, ye jovial sailors, tell me true,
If my sweet William sails among the crew ?
William, who high upon the yard

Rocked with the billow to and fro,
Soon as her well-known voice he heard

He sighed, and cast his eyes below: The cord slides swiftly through his glowing hands, And (quick as lightning) on the deck he stands. So sweet the lark high poised in the air,

Shuts close his pinions to his breast
(If chance his mate's shrill call he hear),

And drops at once into her nest.
The noblest captain in the British fleet
Might envy William's lip those kisses sweet.
0! Susan, Susan, lovely dear,

My vows shall ever true remain;
Let me kiss off that falling tear ;

We only part to meet again.
Change as ye list, ye winds! my heart shall be
The faithful compass that still points to thee.
Believe not what the landsmen say,

Who tempt with doubts thy constant mind;
They 'll tell thee, sailors when away,

In every port a mistress find:
Yes, yes, believe them when they tell thee so,
For thou art present wheresoe'er I go.
If to fair India's coast we sail,

Thy eyes are seen in diamonds bright,

Thy breath is Afric's spicy gale,

Thy skin is ivory so white.
Thus every beauteous object that I view,
Wakes in my soul some charm of lovely Sue.

Though battle call me from thy arms,

Let not my pretty Susan mourn;
Though cannons roar, yet, safe from harms,

William shall to his dear return.
Love turns aside the balls that round me fly,
Lest precious tears should drop from Susan's eye.

The boatswain gave the dreadful word,

The sails their swelling bosom spread; No longer must she stay aboard;

They kissed, she sighed, he hung his head. Her lessening boat unwilling rows to land, Adieu! she cries, and waved her lily hand.

A BALLAD.

'T was when the seas were roaring

With hollow blasts of wind,
A damsel lay deploring,

All on a rock reclined.
Wide o'er the foaming billows

She cast a wistful look;
Her head was crowned with willows,

That trembled o'er the brook.
Twelve months are gone and over,

And nine long tedious days;
Why didst thou, venturous lover,

Why didst thou trust the seas?
Cease, cease thou cruel ocean,

And let my lover rest:
Ah! what 's thy troubled motion

To that within my breast?
The merchant robbed of pleasure,

Sees tempest in despair;
But what 's the loss of treasure,

To losing of my dear ?
Should you some coast be laid on,

Where gold and diamonds grow,
You'd find a richer maiden,

But none that loves you so.

How can they say that nature

Has nothing made in vain;
Why then, beneath the water,

Should hideous rocks remain ?
No eyes the rocks discover

That lurk beneath the deep,
To wreck the wandering lover,

And leave the maid to weep.

All melancholy lying,

Thus wailed she for her dear;
Repaid each blast with sighing,

Each billow with a tear.
When o'er the white wave stooping

His floating corpse she spied,
Then, like a lily drooping,

She bowed her head, and died.

Of the poetical writers of this period we have still to notice, though we shall be compelled to do so with great brevity, Garth, Blackmore, Green, the Countess of Winchelsea, and the distinguished Scottish poet, Allan Ramsay.

a

SAMUEL Garth was of a good family, in Yorkshire, but the period of his birth has not been preserved. From some school in his native county he was sent to Peterhouse College, Cambridge, where he continued to reside till 1691, when he took the degree of doctor of medicine. He immediately after removed to London, was admitted a fellow of the medical college of that city, and soon became so distinguished for his conversational powers and other accomplishments, as to obtain a very extensive practice. He was a kind and benevolent man, as well as a great admirer of his own profession; and in 1696, he published The Dispensary, a poem, to aid the college of physicians in a contest in which they were then engaged with the apothecaries. The latter had ventured to prescribe as well as compound medicines ; and the physicians, to surpass them in popularity, advertised that they would give advice gratis to the poor, and established a dispensary of their own for the sale of cheap medicines.'

Though a devoted whig, Garth was the benevolent patron of merit wherever found. He early fostered the genius of Pope, and when Dryden died, delivered a Latin funeral oration over his remains. With Addison, he was, politically and personally, on terms of the closest intimacy. When, in 1713, *Cato' was brought upon the stage, he, at the author's solicitation, wrote the epilogue, which closes with the following fine lines :

Oh, may once more the happy age appear,
When words were artless, and the thoughts sincere;
When gold and grandeur were unenvied things,
And courts less coveted than groves and springs.
Love then shall only mourn when truth complains,
And constancy feel transport in his chains;
Sighs with success their own soft language tell,
And eyes shall utter what the lips conceal :
Virtue again to its bright station climb,
And beauty fear no enemy but time;
The fair shall listen to desert alone,
And every Lucia find a Cato's son.

On the accession of the House of Hanover, Dr. Garth was knighted by George the First, but he did not long live to enjoy this honor, as his death occurred soon after, January the eighteenth, 1718.

The Dispensary, Sir Samuel Garth's principal poem, is a mock-heroic, in six cantos. Some of the leading apothecaries of the day are happily ridiculed; but the interest of the satire has passed away, and the work did not contain enough of the life of poetry to preserve it from oblivion. The following address, from a keen apothecary, is a fair specimen of the style and versification of the poem :

Could'st thou propose that we, the friends of fates,
Who fill churchyards, and who unpeople states,
Who baffle nature, and dispose of lives,
Whilst Russel, as we please, or starves or thrives,
Should e'er submit to their despotic will,
Who out of consultation scarce can skill ?
The towering Alps shall sooner sink to vales,
And leeches, in our glasses, swell to whales;
Or Norwich trade in instruments of steel,
And Birmingham in stuffs and druggets deal!
Alleys at Wapping furnish us new modes,
And Monmouth Street, Versailles, with riding-hoods;
The sick to the Hundreds in pale throngs repair,
And change the Gravel-pits for Kentish air,
Our properties must on our arms depend;
'Tis next to conquer bravely to defend.
'Tis to the vulgar death too harsh appears;
The ill we feel is only in our fears.

To die, is landing on some sllent shore,
Where billows never break, nor tempest roar:
Ere well we feel the friendly stroke, 'tis o'er.
The wise through thought the insults of death defy;
The fools through blessed insensibility.
'Tis what the guilty fear, the pious crave;
Sought by the wretch, and vanquished by the brave.
It eases lovers, sets the captive free;
And, though a tyrant, offers liberty.

a

RICHARD BLACKMORE was the son of an attorney, and was born at Corsham in Wiltshire, but in what year is unknown. Having been for some time instructed at a country school, he was sent, at the age of thirteen, to Westminster, and thence entered Edmund Hall

, Oxford, where he remained till he took the degree of master of arts. He afterward travelled in Italy, and was made a doctor of medicine at the university of Padua. On his return to his native country he commenced the practice of his profession, and soon rose to eminence as a physician. He was knighted by King William, and made censor of the medical college of London.

In 1695, Sir Richard published an epic poem entitled Prince Arthur, which he says he wrote amidst the duties of his profession, in coffeehouses, or in passing up and down the streets,' and which Dryden charged

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