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copy of verses, descriptive of the sentiments and abode of a midshipman has been ascribed to him by the same biographer.

Falconer is supposed to have continued in the merchant service till he published his poem of the Shipwreck in 1762,* which was dedicated to the Duke of York, who had hoisted his flag as rear admiral of the Blue, on board the Princess Amelia, attached to the fleet under Sir Edward Hawke. Clarke says, "the author was deservedly called a second Homer." The Duke of York kindly patronized this unlooked for production of a sailor, and advised Falconer to leave the merchant service for the Royal Navy. He was accordingly rated as a midshipman on board Sir Edward Hawke's ship, the Royal George; perhaps the very same ship, the funeral knell of which was so musically tolled by the Bard of Olney. In his last visit to Scotland, after the publication of the Shipwreck, it has been said that Falconer + resided

* The first edition was printed by Miller in May, 1762. Shipwreck, in Three Cantos, by a Sailor, 4to. The subsequent editions, says Mr. Alex. Campbell, are by many deemed inferior to the first, as what it has gained in embellishment it has lost in true poetical beauty, and energy of expression. "There is frequently a copious simplicity," says Dr. Anderson, "in his first designs, that no after thought or labour can amend; an irregular beauty, that every alteration must efface."

+ See Lives of Scottish Poets, v. iii. p. 74. The same

at the Manse of Gladsmuir, which was then possessed by his illustrious kinsman, Dr. Robertson, whose father was cousin-german to Falconer. Mr. Chalmers, however, remarks on this statement, that though Robertson may have been related to Falconer, he certainly had left Gladsmuir at that time.

The Shipwreck, on its appearance, was reviewed in the Monthly Review, vol. xxvii. p. 197, in a style of criticism which in later times has given way to one less indulgent and encouraging. The praise here bestowed on Falconer, of equalling Virgil in

writer also observes that Falconer was on board the Ramillies, Captain Taylor, with Admiral Bressau's squadron, Dec. 1760, was shipwrecked, coming up the channel, and out of a crew of 734 men, only Falconer and twenty-three others escaped. These circumstances are not in Dr. Clarke's narrative. It was on this wreck of the Ramillies, and not of the Britannia, that this biographer supposes the poem to be founded: vide Lives, v. iii. p. 70. I shall give his argument in his own words, observing that he is the only biographer of Falconer who alludes to the poet being on board the Ramillies; nor does Dr. Clarke assign the poem in Gent. Mag. dated Ramillies, B. of Biscay, 25th Nov. 1706, to Falconer, which the present writer does. He supposes that the shipwreck of the Ramillies suggested the poem, but that the loss of the Britannia was chosen for the sake of

the scenery. "It seems rather probable that he proceeded by an inverted order, and that his verses on the loss of the Ramillies first gave the idea of the more extended poem, on the loss of the Britannia. The tribute which he paid to the memory of the Prince of Wales, shows what were his

his descriptions, and surpassing him in the character of the modern Palinurus, is such, as in the present day would hardly have been bestowed on our most honoured poets; and Dr. Clarke has added, while giving some passages which an Irishman had translated into Latin verse, "that they will prove, even to the pedant, that the diction between Virgil and Falconer is not so great as may be imagined." Truly the comparison of Falconer's somewhat prosaic lines, translated into Hibernian Latin, to Virgil's exquisite and inimitable

poetical powers after his first misfortune; and if we examine the Shipwreck by this test, it will be found that there is scarcely a couplet in it which can be referred to so humble a level. It displays everywhere proofs of having been begun and ended during a far more advanced period of improvement, when he had acquired an astonishing mastery over the mechanism of versification, and was rich in ideas, the fruit of long experience and reflection. It is deserving too of attention, that in many places the story has evidently been indebted for circumstances that heighten its interest, to what the author could only have witnessed on board the Ramillies and though it is possible that these may have been additions to a poem previously written, yet there is an air of original connectedness in the narrative, which by no means favours the supposition. The throwing the guns overboard is one very striking instance of that Man-of-war experience which pervades the poem: nor could anything but the latitude of poetical license justify the introduction of such a circumstance into the description of a merchant vessel in distress." This writer's reasons must be taken for what they are worth.

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language, is most wonderfully unfortunate! But we proceed to give the review :

"It has frequently been observed, that true genius will surmount every obstacle which opposes its exertion: how unfavourable soever the situation of a Seaman may be thought to the Poet, certain it is the two characters are not incompatible; for none but an able Seaman could give so didactic an account, and so accurate a description of the voyage and catastrophe here related; and none but a particular favourite of the muses could have embellished both with equal harmony of numbers, and strength of imagery.

"The main subject of the poem is the loss of the Ship Britannia, a merchantman, bound from Alexandria to Venice, which touched at the Island of Candia; whence proceeding on her voyage, she Imet with a violent storm that drove her on the coasts of Greece, where she suffered shipwreck near Cape Colonne; three only of the crew being left alive.

"The ship putting to sea from the Port of Candia, the Poet takes an opportunity of making several beautiful marine descriptions; such as the prospect of the shore; a shoal of dolphins; a water-spout; the method of taking an azimuth; and working the ship. In the Second Canto, the ship having cleared the land, the storm begins;

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and with it the consultation of the pilots, and operations of the seamen; all which the Poet has described with an amazing minuteness, and has found means to reduce the several technical terms of the marine into smooth and harmonious numbers. Homer has been admired by some for reducing a catalogue of ships into tolerably flowing verse; but who, except a poetical Sailor, the nursling of Apollo, educated by Neptune, would ever have thought of versifying his own sea-language? what other poet would ever have dreamt of reef-tackles, haliards, clue-garnets, buntlines, lashings, laniards, and fifty other terms equally obnoxious to the soft sing-song of modern poetasters.

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Many of his descriptions are not inferior to any thing in the Eneid; many passages in the third and fifth books of which our Author has had in view; they have not suffered by his imitation ; and his pilot appears to much greater advantage than the Palinurus of Virgil.

"Nor is the Poet's talent confined to the description of inanimate scenes: he relates, and bewails, the untimely fate of his companions in the most animated and pathetic strains. The close of the master's address to the seamen, in the time of their greatest danger, is noble and philosophical. It is impossible to read the circumstan