;

I know my need, I know thy giving hand,
I crave thy friendship at thy kind command
But there are such who court the tuneful nine-
Heavens! should the branded character be mine!
Whose verse in manhood's pride sublimely flows,
Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose.
Mark, how their lofty independent spirit
Soars on the spurning wing of injur'd merit!
Seek not the proofs in private life to find;
Pity the best of words should be but wind!
So, to heaven's gates the lark's shrill song ascends,
But groveling on the earth the carol ends.
In all the clam'rous cry of starving want,
They dun benevolence with shameless front;
Oblige them, patronize their tinsel lays,
They persecute you all your future days!
Ere my poor soul such deep damnation stain,
My horny fist assume the plough again;
The pie-ball'd jacket let me patch once more;
On eighteen pence a week I've liv'd before.

Though, thanks to Heaven, I dare even that last shift,

I trust meantime my boon is in thy gift;

That plac'd by thee upon the wish'd-for height
Where, man and nature fairer in her sight,

My muse may imp her wing for some sublimer flight.*

No.

This is our Poet's first epistle to Graham of Fintry. It is not equal to the second, printed vol. iii. p. 317; but it contains too much of the characteristic vigour of its author to be suppressed. A little more knowledge of natural history, or of chemistry, was wanted to enable him to execute the original conception correctly.

E.

No. LVII.

To MR. PETER HILL.

Mauchline, 1st October, 1788.

I HAVE been here in this country about three days, and all that time my chief reading has been the "Address to Lochlomond," you were so obliging as to send to me. Were I impannelled one of the author's jury to determine his criminality respecting the sin of poesy, my verdict should be "guilty! A poet of nature's making." It is an excellent method for improvement, and what I believe every poet does ; to place some favourite classic author, in his own walks of study and composition, before him as á model. Though your author had not mentioned the name, I could have, at half a glance, guessed his model to be, Thomson. Will my brother-poet forgive me, if I venture to hint, that his imitation of that immortal bard

is,

is, in two or three places, rather more servile than such a genius as his required.—e. g.

To soothe the madding passions all to peace.

ADDRESS.

To soothe the throbbing passions into peace.

THOMSON.

one in

I think the Address is, in simplicity, harmony, and elegance of versification, fully equal to the Seasons. Like Thomson, too, he has looked into nature for himself: you meet with no copied description. One particular criticism I made at first reading; in no stance has he said too much. He never flags in his progress, but, like a true poet of Nature's His beginning making, kindles in his course. is simple and modest, as if distrustful of the strength of his pinion; only, I do not altoge

ther like

"Truth,

The soul of every song that's nobly great."

Fiction is the soul of many a song that is nobly great. Perhaps I am wrong: this may be but a prose-criticism. Is not the phrase, in line 7, page 6, "Great lake," too much vulgarized by every-day language, for so sublime a poem ?

VOL. II.

N

"Great

"Great mass of waters, theme for nobler song"

is perhaps no emendation. His enumeration of a comparison with other lakes is at once harmonious and poetic. Every reader's ideas must sweep the

"Winding margin of an hundred miles."

The perspective that follows mountains blue -the imprisoned billows beating in vain-the wooded isles-the digression on the yew-tree"Ben-lomond's lofty cloud-envelop'd head," &c. are beautiful. A thunder-storm is a subject which has been often tried; yet our poet, in his grand picture, has interjected a circumstance, so far as I know, entirely original:

"The gloom

Deep-seam'd with frequent streaks of moving fire."

In his preface to the Storm, "The glens, how dark between!" is noble highland landscape! The "rain ploughing the red mould," too, is beautifully fancied. Ben-Iomond's "lofty pathless top," is a good expression; and the surrounding view from it is truly great; the

"Silver mist

Beneath the beaming sun,"

is well described; and here he has contrived to

enliven

enliven his poem with a little of that passion which bids fair, I think, to usurp the modern muses altogether. I know not how far this

episode is a beauty upon the whole; but the swain's wish to carry "some faint idea of the vision bright," to entertain her "partial listening ear," is a pretty thought. But, in my opinion, the most beautiful passages in the whole poem are the fowls crowding, in wintry frosts, to loch-lomond's " hospitable flood;" their wheeling round, their lighting, mixing, diving, &c.; and the glorious description of the sportsman. This last is equal to any thing in the Seasons. The idea of "the floating tribes distant seen, far glistering to the moon," provoking his eye as he is obliged to leave them, is a noble ray of poetic genius. "The howling winds," the "hideous roar" of "the white cascades," are all in the same style.

I forget that, while I am thus holding forth, with the heedless warmth of an enthusiast, I am perhaps tiring you with nonsense. I must, however mention, that the last verse of the sixteenth page is one of the most elegant compliments I have ever seen. I must likewise notice that beautiful paragraph, beginning, "The gleaming lake," &c. I dare not go into the particular beauties of the two last paragraphs,