We will take leave of Innocents' Day, and of our interesting subject, with the following lines On the Death of a lovely Girl, five Years old,' by one of the Society of Friends, Eleanor Dickinson, of Springfield Academy, near Liverpool. It affords a favourable specimen of her volume of poetry lately published, entitled Pleasures of Piety,' a production well calculated to promote the 'momentous interests of religion.'

Sweet little flow'r, thy bloom is fled,
Thy tender leaves are pale and dead,
And scattered, (once so rosy red)
O'er the cold tomb.

Around thee now in vain may beam
The summer's ray, or winter's gleam;
No sun can pierce the slumb'rer's dream
In earth's dark womb.

But yet on thee a sun shall rise
More glorious than these earthly skies,
E'er dipped in heav'n's aërial dies,
Or beauty's ray;

A light, that on thy spirit breaking,
From death's embrace in bliss awaking,
Shall bid it, ev'ry care forsaking,

Rise into day.

Then why the night of sorrow here,
That darkens round thy early bier,
And o'er thy mem'ry sheds the tear
Of vain regret?

We should not mourn the closing flow'r
Whose petals shun the nightly hour,
But open to that orb, whose pow'r
Can never set.

*30. 1792.-JEREMIAH HOLMES WIFFEn born, At Woburn, in Bedfordshire, of parents both of whom were members of the Society of Friends. Taught to read by a most excellent mother, still living, as soon as he could speak,-from his earliest years he was seldom without a book about him; and his first attachments were poetical,-for, no sooner could he form letters and words, than he was continually writing out verses, Mallett's pathetic ballad of Edwin and Emma making the earliest and deepest impression on his mind. At seven years of age he was

sent to a school at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, conducted by Mr. G Blaxland, a member of the Society of Friends; and, at the expiration of two years, was removed to Ackworth school, in Yorkshire the public academical institution of this sect. Here he distinguished himself by a steady and uniform excellence in all the branches of education taught there, bearing off, on most public examinations, the prizes proposed for successful competition in each of them. In an establishment where the greatest caution is used in the introduction of works of imagination, our embryo poet had little opportunity for gratifying his taste in reading; yet, in spite of the restrictions by which he was surrounded, he managed, even there, to procure Pope's translation of Homer, and soon became familiar with that noble poem, several books of which he committed to memory, as he also did the whole of Dryden's Palemon and Arcite, and of Campbell's exquisite poem, the Pleasures of Hope. Whilst at Ackworth, he also learnt the art of engraving on wood, and executed several scries of cuts for the booksellers of Pontefract and Leeds.

The love of poetry and reading gradually settled down into a passion; and when it became necessary for him, at the usual period, to choose his occupation in life, he fixed upon that of tuition, as affording the best opportunities for a continued application to his favourite literary pursuits. Immediately on leaving school, which he did between the age of thirteen and fourteen, he was accordingly apprenticed to Mr. Isaac Payne, a member of the Society of Friends, at the head of a highly respectable academy at Epping, in Essex, who engaged to instruct him in Latin and French. For the acquisition of these, he soon found, however, that he must depend altogether upon his own exertions, and he accordingly applied himself to them with such unremitted assiduity, that he anxiously devoted to their pursuits every moment of leisure which he could command during the day, with the greater portion of the night; and by such exertions was soon able to read the Latin classics, and found no difficulty in mastering any of the French authors. He then applied with similar assiduity to the Greek, and succeeded so well, that, though self-taught, he translated, at the age of fifteen, with great spirit, the admirable Ode of Sappho, known to most of our readers by Philips's translation, beginning with, Blest as the immortal gods is he.'

At Epping, our poet was any thing but happy, far from his friends, shut out from all sympathy, and often from common kindness, he was thrown upon his own resources, upon retirement, and the solaces of religion, for comfort. His 'Aspley Wood,' the principal in his first volume of published poems, embodies, indeed, much of the feeling which he at this period indulged, flying for refuge from the disappointment of his fondest expectations to the vast forest there, and nourishing in its deepest recesses the melancholy tone of mind which so often tends

to form the poetical enthusiast. With such feelings, it was with joy that he returned home to his native scenes and beloved family, on the expiration of his apprenticeship, in 1822; in the summer of which year he established, in his mother's house, a boarding school, in the conduct of which, although but between nineteen and twenty years of age, he met with great encouragement, and gave universal satisfaction.

In 1819, Mr. Wiffen published his Aonian Hours,' of which the principal piece, entitled Aspley Wood,' (the delightful sce nery of his boyish days, in the immediate vicinity of Woburn), was composed in the course of a few weeks, in hours stolen from sleep, and the very few moments of leisure which could be snatched from the laborious work of tuition.

The 'Aonian Hours' were very favourably received by the public, and amply deserved the flattering encouragement given to their author by the critics of the day. Of this beautiful poem, indeed, our readers will form the best opinion from the extracts we have given in the pages of Time's Telescope for the present year. According to our notions of poetical excellence, if Mr. Wiffen had written nothing more than the Aonian Hours,' he would have been entitled to a distinguished place among the bards of his country. But critics, as well as doctors, disagree; and an anonymous writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for Sept. 1825, has the following sapient remarks on some living poets, including the subject of this memoir: Of the hundreds of inferior poets (quoth he) who are continually offering their sonnets and addresses to the Moon (or, to the public, instead of that luminary) Wade, Barton, Wiffen, and Bailey, are the most conspicuous. Barton and Bailey are above the mediocres, and WIFFEN tolerable! These illiberal observations do not deserve an answer-the best refutation that can be offered to such remarks is to be found in the works of these poets-which speak for themselves! But what else could be expected from a writer on the present state of Literature, who says that Clare is a wonderful self-taught genius, and SUPERIOR TO BLOOMFIELD; and that Montgomery is rather among the list of by-gone poets!!! He has the candour, however, to admit that the talents of Mrs. Hemans and Miss Landon are very considerable,' and says that Mr. [Alaric A.?] Watts's productions have been sometimes mistaken for those of Byron.

6

But to return to our narrative. In 1820 Mr. Wiffen printed his Julia Alpinula and other Poems,' in which may easily be traced his high admiration of the poetical talents of a noble lord lately deceased; the two principal tales in the collection, as well as several of its minor poems, being evidently Byronic, and ranking amongst the very best of the imitations of the highly gifted founder of that extraordinary school.

But it was previously to this period that he had conceived the

idea, to the successful execution of which he will mainly be indebted for his poetical immortality,-the translating anew the Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso, in the Spenserian stanza, which he very correctly thought the best adapted to the romantic character of his great original. Undeterred by the length and difficulty of his undertaking, and animated, perhaps, by the secret, though delightful, consciousness of having found a fit subject for the exercise of his powers, he set himself seriously to his task,beginning Italian, and the translation of the greatest of the Italian poets, together, much in the manner which Sir W. Jones is said to have adopted in acquiring languages. While engaged in this pleasing labour, Mr. Wiffen received a fresh stimulus to his exertions, in the invitation which, in the summer of 1820, he received from his GRACE THE DUKE OF BEDFORD, (whose younger sons he had for some time attended, for the purpose of tuition during their vacations) to take up his residence at Woburn Abbey, in the character of his librarian, and occasional amanuensis. The offer thus liberally made was readily accepted, and, at his first interview with the Duke, he was informed that he was exempted from all but the common attention requisite to keep the library in order, and was at full liberty to devote the remainder of his time to his own literary pursuits.

In order to evince his grateful sense of the attention shown to him by the head of the house of Russell, our poet determined to translate, and dedicate to his Grace, some author of celebrity; and his choice fixed upon Garcilasso, as a novelty in our language, in which we had not before a perfect translation of any Spanish poet. He accordingly commenced the study of the language and his translation together, as he had done with the Italian, and completed, in time for publication in the winter of 1822, a version of à poet little known in England, which tended very greatly to increase his reputation both as a scholar and a poet. This version was begun, however, continued, and completed, but as a relaxation from his longer and more laborious work, which, by daily and constant application, was ready for the press in the summer of 1823. Resolved to spare neither pains nor expense, in producing a book, which, by its execution, might do credit to a numerous and an illustrious list of subscribers, at the head of which he was authorised to place the name of His Majesty, the printing was entrusted to MR. MOYES, (now residing in Bouverie Street, Fleet Street) from whose elegant and accurate press, issued, in the summer of 1824, the first volume of the translation, accompanied by some of the most exquisite wood-cuts ever produced in this country, and presenting altogether a specimen of typographical beauty never perhaps excelled. This portion of the work has, however, hitherto been confined to subscribers, its author prudently determining not to issue it to the public until the whole translation was completed. This circumstance has necessarily prevented the

volume from being generally known, as but few of the periodical journals of the day can hitherto have noticed it, although those which have done so speak of it in the terms of high approbation, which it so richly deserves.__Already has its reputation reached a foreign shore, and the Revue Encyclopédique does no more than justice when it declares, that it is both elegant and faithful, and has throughout all the magic and charm of the original Tasso. It is, indeed, beyond all comparison, the best translation that has appeared; and when the assiduous attention bestowed upon it by the author for five entire years, his unremitting study of our older English poets, the better to qualify him for the task, and his reputation as an original poet of singularly harmonious versification, are taken into consideration, it is difficult to conceive that it will ever be excelled. Two short specimens from the first volume of Mr. Wiffen's Translation were given in T. T. for 1825, pp. 101, 102: we add the following beautiful stanzas from the second volume' (just delivered to the subscribers), as a further proof of the great merit displayed in this valuable addition to our literature: they are descriptive of the Garden of Armida, Canto XVI, Stanzas 9-16.

These windings passed, the garden-gates unfold,
And the fair Eden meets their glad survey,-
Still waters, moving crystals, sands of gold,

Herbs, thousand flowers, rare shrubs, and mosses grey;
Sunshiny hillocks, shady vales, woods gay

And grottos gloomy, in one view combined,
Presented were; and what increased their play
Of pleasure at the prospect, was to find

Nowhere the happy Art that had the whole designed.

So natural seemed each ornament and site,
So well was neatness mingled with neglect,
As though boon Nature for her own delight
Her mocker mocked, till Fancy's self was checked;
The air, if nothing else there, is the' effect
Of magic, to the sound of whose soft flute

The blooms are born with which the trees are decked;
By flowers eternal lives the' eternal fruit,

This running richly ripe, whilst those but greenly shoot.
Midst the same leaves, and on the self-same twig,
The rosy apple with the' unripe is seen;

This volume has been twice printed: the first impression was unfortunately destroyed by a fire, which consumed the whole of Mr. Moyes's extensive Printing Office, in Greville Street, Hatton Garden. An Edition of the entire Translation in three vols. demy octavo has been just published.