Toll for the brave!

The brave that are no more!

All sunk beneath the wave,

Fast by their native shore.

On the Loss of the Royal George.

An honest man, close buttoned to the skin,

Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.

To Joseph Hill. A 'Horatian Epistle.'

Bound on a voyage of awful length

And dangers little known,

A stranger to superior strength,
Man vainly trusts his own.

But oars alone can ne'er prevail

To reach the distant coast;

The breath of heaven must swell the sail,

Or all the toil is lost.

Human Frailty. Ont of six stanzas.

Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, will have passed away.

The Needless Alarm.

The following letter to Lady Hesketh is a specimen of his prose style:MY DEAREST COUSIN,

Feb. 27, 1786.

Now for Homer, and the matters to Homer appertaining. Sephus and I are of opinions perfectly different on the subject of such an advertisement as he recommends. The only proper part for me is not to know that such a man as Pope has ever existed. I am so nice upon this subject that in that note in the specimen, in which I have accounted for the anger of Achilles (which, I believe, I may pay myself the compliment to say was never accounted for before), I have not even so much as hinted at the perplexity in which Pope was entangled when he endeavoured to explain it, nor at the preposterous and blundering work that he has made with it. No, my dear, as I told you once before, my attempt has itself a loud voice, and speaks a most intelligible language. Had Pope's translation been good, or had I thought it such, or had I not known that it is admitted by all whom a knowledge of the original qualifies to judge of it, to be a very defective one, I had never translated myself one line of Homer. Dr. Johnson is the

only modern writer who has spoken of it in terms of approbation, at least the only one that I have met with. And his praise of it is such as convinces me, intimately acquainted as I am with Pope's performance, that he talked at random, that either he had never examined it by Homer's, or never since he was a boy. For I would undertake to produce numberless passages from it, if need were, not only ill translated, but meanly written. It is not, therefore, for me, convinced as I am of the truth of all I say, to go forth into the world holding up Pope's translation with one hand as a work to be extolled, and my own with the other as a work still wanted. It is plain to me that I behave with sufficient liberality on the occasion, if, neither praising nor blaming my predecessor, I go right forward, and leave the world to decide between us.

Now, to come nearer to myself. Poets, my dear (it is a secret I have lately discovered), are born to trouble; and of all poets, translators of Homer to the most. Our dear friend, the General, whom I truly love, in his last letter mortified me not a little. I do not mean by suggesting lines that he thought might be amended, for I hardly ever wrote fifty lines together that I could not afterwards have improved, but by what appeared to me an implied censure on the whole, or nearly the whole quire that I sent to you. It was a great work, he said;—it should be kept long in hand; -years, if it were possible; that it stood in need of much amendment, that it ought to be made worthy of me, that he could not think of showing it to Maty, that he could not even think of laying it before Johnson and his friend in its present condition. Now, my dear, understand thou this: if there lives a man who stands clear of the charge of careless wriring, I am that man. I might prudently, perhaps, but I could not honestly, admit that charge: it would account in a way favourable to my own ability for many defects of which I am guilty, but it would be disingenuous and untrue. The copy which I sent to you was almost a new, I mean a second, translation, as far as it went. With the first I had taken pains, but with the second I took more. I weighed many expressions, exacted from myself the utmost fidelity to my author, and tried all the numbers upon my own ear again and again. If, therefore, after all this care, the execution be such as in the General's account it seems to be, I appear to have made shipwreck of my hopes at once. He said,

indeed, that the similes delighted him, and the catalogue of the ships surpassed his expectations: but his commendation of so small a portion of the whole affected me rather painfully, as it seemed to amount to an implied condemnation of the rest. I have been the more uneasy because I know his taste to be good, and by the selection that he made of lines that he thought should be altered, he proved it such. I altered them all, and thanked him, as I could very sincerely, for his friendly attention. Now what is the present state of my mind on this subject? It is this. I do not myself think ill of what I have done, nor at the same time so foolishly well as to suppose that it has no blemishes. But I am sadly afraid that the General's anxiety will make him extremely difficult to be pleased: I fear that he will require of me more than any other man would require, or than he himself would require of any other writer. What I can do to give him satisfaction I am perfectly ready to do; but it is possible for an anxious friend to demand more than my ability could perform. Not a syllable of all this, my dear, to him, or to any other creature. Mum! Yours most truly,

185. Erasmus Darwin, M.D., 1731-1802.

208, 441.)

WM. COWPER.

(Handbook, pars. 106,

Author of the Botanic Garden, a poem very fantastic and wearisome, but with passages of beauty and power.

Steel.

Hail, adamantine STEEL! magnetic lord!

King of the prow, the ploughshare, and the sword!
True to the pole, by thee the pilot guides

His steady helm amid the struggling tides;
Braves with broad sail th' immeasurable sea,
Cleaves the dark air, and asks no star but thee.
By thee the ploughshare rends the matted plain,
Inhumes in level rows the living grain;
Intrusive forests quit the cultured ground,
And Ceres laughs, with golden fillets crowned.
O'er restless realms, when scowling discord flings
Her snakes, and loud the din of battle rings;
Expiring strength, and vanquish'd courage feel
Thy arm resistless, adamantine STEEL!

The Botanic Garden. Economy of Vegetation. Pt. i.

The Papyrus.

Papyra, throned upon the banks of Nile,

Spread her smooth leaf, and waved her silver style.
-The storied pyramid, the laurel'd bust,
The trophy'd arch had crumbled into dust;
The sacred symbol, and the epic song
(Unknown the character, forgot the tongue),
With each unconquer'd chief, or sainted maid,
Sunk undistinguish'd in Oblivion's shade.
Sad o'er the scatter'd ruins Genius sigh'd,
And infant Arts but learn'd to lisp and died,
Till to astonish'd realms Papyra taught
To paint, in mystic colours, sound and thought;
With Wisdom's voice to print the page sublime,
And mark in adamant the steps of Time.
Three favour'd youths her soft attention share,
The fond disciples of the studious fair,

Hear her sweet voice, the golden process prove;

Gaze as they learn, and, as they listen, love.d...

Pleased, round her cane-wove throne, the applauding crowd
Clapp'd their rude hands, their swarthy foreheads bow'd;

With loud acclaim, 'A present God!' they cried,
A present God!' rebellowing shores replied;
Then peal'd at intervals with mingled swell,
The echoing harp, shrill clarion, horn, and shell:
While bards, ecstatic, bending o'er the lyre,
Struck deeper chords, and wing'd the song with fire.
Then mark'd astronomers with keener eyes,
The moon's refulgent journey through the skies;
Watch'd the swift comets urge their blazing cars,
And weigh'd the sun with his revolving stars.
High raised the chemists their Hermetic' wands,
(And changing forms obey'd their waving hands,)
a The paper-plant-personified.

A play on words: the style is the shaft of the pistil of the flower and also the iron pen of the ancients.

• Darwin makes every plant tell its own class and order-being in the Linnæan sexual system. The stamens are youths and the pistils, ladies. The papyrus therefore belongs to the class

triandria and to the order monogynia.

d Each youth originates a science,letters, numbers, and music: then follows the admiration of the people.

• Cane-wove, the papyrus belonging to this genus.

f Belonging to Hermes or Mercury, the supposed originator of Chemistry,

Her treasur'd gold from earth's deep chambers tore,
Or fused and harden'd her chalybeate ore.

All, with bent knee, from fair Papyra claim,
Wove by her hands, the wreath of deathless fame.
Exulting Genius crown'd his darling child,

The young Arts clasp'd her knees, and Virtue smil'd.

The Botanic Garden, pt. ii. cant. ii.

186. James Beattie, 1735-1803. (Handbook, pars. 208, 452.)

A vigorous metaphysician, as is proved by his Essay on Truth; and a popular minor post. His brief Essays are among the most effective of his works.

Scottish Music.

There is a certain style of melody peculiar to each musical country, which the people of that country are apt to prefer to every other style. That they should prefer their own is not surprising; and that the melody of one people should differ from that of another is not more surprising, perhaps, than that the language of one people should differ from that of another. But there is something not unworthy of notice in the particular expression and style that characterize the music of one nation or province, and distinguish it from every other sort of music. Of this diversity Scotland supplies a striking example. The native melody of the Highlands and Western Isles is as different from that of the southern part of the kingdom as the Irish or Erse language is different from the English or Scotch. In the conclusion of a discourse on music, as it relates to the mind, it will not perhaps be impertinent to offer a conjecture on the cause of these peculiarities; which, though it should not-and indeed I am satisfied that it will not-fully account for any one of them, may, however, incline the reader to think that they are not unaccountable, and may also throw some faint light on this part of philosophy.

Every thought that partakes of the nature of passion has a correspondent expression in the look and gesture; and so strict is the union between the passion and its outward sign, that, where the former is not in some degree felt, the latter can never be perfectly natural, but, if assumed, becomes awkward mimicry, instead of that genuine imitation of nature which draws forth the sympathy of the beholder. If therefore there be, in the circumstances of particular nations or persons, anything that gives a