Her magic powers their exiled health restore,
Till horror and despair are felt no more.

A troop of Grecians who inhabit nigh,
And oft these perils of the deep descry,
Roused by the blustering tempest of the night,
Anxious had climb'd Colonna's neighbouring
height;

When gazing downward on th' adjacent flood,
Full to their view the scene of ruin stood,
The surf with mangled bodies strew'd around,
And those yet breathing on the sea-wash'd ground!
Though lost to science and the nobler arts,
Yet Nature's lore inform'd their feeling hearts;
Straight down the vale with hastening steps they
hied.

Th' unhappy sufferers to assist and guide.

Meanwhile those three escaped beneath explore
The first adventurous youth who reach'd the shore;
Panting, with eyes averted from the day,
Prone, helpless on the tangled beach he lay-
It is Palemon ;-O what tumults roll
With hope and terror in Arion's soul!
If yet unhurt he lives again to view

His friend, and this sole remnant of our crew!
With us to travel through this foreign zone,
And share the future good or ill-unknown!
Arion thus: but ah! sad doom of Fate!
That bleeding Memory sorrows to relate:
While yet afloat, on some resisting rock
His ribs were dash'd, and fractured with the shock:
Heart-piercing sight! those cheeks, so late array'd
In beauty's bloom are pale, with mortal shade!
Distilling blood his lovely breast o'erspread,
And clogg'd the golden tresses of his head.
Nor yet the lungs by this pernicious stroke
Were wounded, or the vocal organs broke.
Down from his neck, with blazing gems array'd,
Thy image, lovely Anna, hung portray'd;
Th' unconscious figu e smiling all serene,
Suspended in a golden chain was seen.
Hadst thou, soft maiden; in this hour of wo,
Beheld him writhing from the deadly blow,
What force of art, what language could express
Thine agony? thine exquisite distress?
But thou, alas! art doom'd to weep in vain
For him thine eyes shall never see t gain!
With dumb amazement pale, Arion gazed,
And cautiously the wounded youth upraised.
Palemon then, with cruel pangs oppress'd,
In faltering accents thus his friend address'd:
“O rescued from destruction late so nigh,
Beneath whose fatal influence doom'd I lie;
Are we then exiled to this last retreat
Of life, unhappy! thus decreed to meet?
Ah! how unlike what yester-morn enjoy'd
Enchanting hopes, for ever now destroy'd!
For, wounded far beyond all healing power,
Palemon dies, and this his final hour:
By those fell breakers, where in vain I strove,
At once cut off from fortune, life, and love!
Far other scenes must soon present my sight,
That lie deep buried yet in tenfold night.
Ah! wretched father of a wretched son,
Whom thy paternal prudence has undone !
How will remembrance of this blinded care
Bend down thy head with anguish and despair!
Such dire effects from avarice arise,
That deaf to Nature's voice and vainly wise,
VOL. III.-3

I With force severe endeavours to control
The noblest passions that inspire the soul.
But, O thou sacred Power! whose law connects
Th' eternal chain of causes and effects,
Let not thy chastening ministers of rage
Afflict with sharp remorse his feeble age!
And you, Arion! who with these the last
Of all our crew survive the shipwreck past-
Ah! cease to mourn! those friendly tears restrain;
Nor give my dying moments keener pain!
Since Heaven may soon thy wandering steps re-

store,

When parted, hence, to England's distant shore
Shouldst thou th' unwilling messenger of Fate
To him the tragic story first relate,
O! friendship's generous ardour then suppress,
Nor hint the fatal cause of my distress;
Nor let each horrid incident sustain
The lengthen'd tale to aggravate his pain.
Ah! then remember well my last request,
For her who reigns for ever in my breast;
Yet let him prove a father and a friend,
The helpless maid to succour and defend.
Say, I this suit implored with parting breath,
So Heaven befriend him at his hour of death!
But O, to lovely Anna shouldst thou tell
What dire untimely end thy friend befell,
Draw o'er the dismal scene goft Pity's veil;
And lightly touch the lamentable tale:
Say that my love, inviolably true,
No change, no diminution ever knew;
Lo! her bright image pendant on my neck,
Is all Palemon rescued from the wreck:
Take it, and say, when panting in the wave,
I struggled life and this alone to save!

That steals from Pity's eye the melting tear,
Of two chaste hearts by mutual passion join'd
To absence, sorrow, and despair consign'd,
O! then to swell the tides of social wo
That heal th' afflicted bosom they o'erflow,
While Memory dictates, this sad shipwreck tell,
And what distress thy wretched friend befell!
Then while in streams of soft compassion drown'd
The swains lament and maidens weep around;
While lisping children, touch'd with infant fear,
With wonder gaze, and drop th' unconscious tear
O! then this moral bid their souls retain,
All thoughts of happiness on earth are vain.”*
The last faint accents trembled on his tongue,
That now inactive to the palate clung;

-sed scilicet ultima semper Expectanda dies homini; "dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet." Ovid. Met.

His bosom heaves a mortal groan-he dies!
And shades eternal sink upon his eyes!

As thus defaced in death Palemon lay,
Arion gazed upon the lifeless clay :
'Transfix'd he stood with awful terror fill'd,
While down his cheek the silent drops distill'd
"O ill-starr'd votary, of unspotted truth!
Untimely perish'd in the bloom of youth,
Should e'er thy friend arrive on Albion's land,
He will obey, though painful, thy demand:
His tongue the dreadful story shall display,
And all the horrors of this dismal day!
Disastrous day! what ruin has thou bred!
What anguish to the living and the dead!
How hast thou left the widow all forlorn,
And ever doom'd the orphan child to mourn

Through life's sad journey hopeless to complain'
Can sacred Justice these events ordain?
But, O my soul! avoid that wondrous maze
Where Reason, lost in endless error, strays!
As through this thorny vale of life we run,
Great Cause of all effects, Thy will be done!”

Now had the Grecians on the beach arrived
To aid the helpless few who yet survived:
While passing they behold the waves o'erspread
With shatter'd rafts and corses of the dead,
Three still alive, benumb'd and faint they find,
In mournful silence on a rock reclined;
The generous natives, moved with social pain,
The feeble strangers in their arms sustain ;
With pitying sighs their hapless lot deplore,
And lead them trembling from the fatal shors

This gifted authoress, the daughter of Dr. John Aikin, was born at Kilworth Harcourt, in Leicestershire, on the 20th of June, 1743. Her education was entirely domestic, but the quickness of apprehension, and desire for learning which she manifested, induced her father to lend her his assistance towards enabling her to obtain a knowledge of Latin and Greek. On the removal of Dr. Aikin to superintend the dissenting academy at Warrington, in Lancashire, she accompanied him thither, in her fifteenth year, when she is said to have possessed great beauty of person and vivacity of intellect. The associates she met with at Warrington were in every way congenial to her mind, and among others, were Drs. Priestley and Enfield, with whom she formed an intimate acquaintance. In 1773, she was induced to publish a volume of her poems, which, in the course of the same year, went through four editions. They were followed by miscellaneous pieces in prose, by J. (her brother) and A. L. Aikin, which considerably added to her reputation.

In 1774, she married the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld, with whom she removed to Palgrave, near Dis, in Suffolk, where her husband had charge of a dissenting congregation, and was about to open a boarding-school. Mrs. Barbauld assisted him in the task of instruction; and some of her pupils, who have since risen to literary eminence, among whom were the present Mr. Denman and Sir William Gell, have acknowledged the value of her lessons in English composition, and declamation. In 1775, appeared a small volume from her pen, entitled Devotional Pieces, compiled from the Psalms of David, &c.; a collection which met with little success and some animadversion. In 1778, she published her Lessons for Children from Two to Three Years Old; and, in 1781, Hymns in Prose, for Children; both of which may be said to have formed an era in the art of instruction, and the former has been translated into French, by M. Pasquier.

and Propriety of Public or Social Worship; and Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation, or a Discourse for the Fast, which last appeared in 1793 In 1802, she removed, with Mr. Barbauld, to Stoke Newington; and in 1804, published selec. tions from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian, and Freeholder, with a preliminary essay, which is regarded as her most successful effort in literary criticism. In the same year, appeared her edition of The Correspondence of Richardson, in six volumes, duodecimo; but the most valuable part of this work is the very elegant and interesting life of that novelist, and the able review of his works, from the pen of our authoress. In 1808, she be came widow; and in 1810, appeared her edition of The British Novelists, with an introductory essay, and biographical and critical notices prefixed to the works of each author. In the following year she published a collection of prose and verse, under the title of The Female Spectator; and in the same year, appeared that original offspring ot her genius, Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, a poem. This was the last separate publication of Mrs. Barbauld, who died on the 9th of March, 1825, in the eighty-second year of her age. An edition of her works appeared in the same year, in two octavo volumes, with a memoir, by Lucy Aikin.

Mrs. Barbauld is one of the most eminent female writers which England has produced; and both in prose and poetry she is hardly surpassed by any of her sex, in the present age. With respect to the style, we shall, perhaps, best describe it, by calling it that of a female Johnson; and her Essay on Romances is a professed imitation of the manner of that great critic. He is himself said to have allowed it to be the best that was ever attempted ; "because it reflected the colour of his thoughts, no less than the turn of his expressions." She is, however, not without a style of her own, which is graceful, easy, and natural; alike calculated to engage the most common, and the most elevated understanding. Her poems are addressed more to the feelings than to the imagination,—more to the reason than the senses; but the language never becomes prosaic, and has sublimity and pathos, totally fiee from bombast and affectation. The spirit of piety and benevolence that breathes

amiable example to her sex that it is possible to combine, without danger to its morals or religious principles, a manly understanding with a feminine and susceptible heart.

When the storm thickens, when the combat burns,
And pain and death in every horrid shape
That can appal the feeble, prowl around,
Then Virtue triumphs; then her towering form
Dilates with kindling majesty; her mien
Breathes a diviner spirit, and enlarged
Each spreading feature, with an ampler port
And bolder tone, exulting, rides the storm,
And joys amidst the tempest. Then she reaps
Her golden harvest; fruits of nobler growth
And higher relish than meridian suns
Can ever ripen; fair, heroic deeds,
And godlike action. "Tis not meats and drinks,
And balmy airs, and vernal suns and showers,
That feed and ripen minds; 'tis toil and danger;
And wrestling with the stubborn gripe of fate;
And war, and sharp distress, and paths obscure
And dubious. The bold swimmer joys not so
To feel the proud waves under him, and beat
With strong repelling arm the billowy surge;
The generous courser does not so exult
To toss his floating mane against the wind,
And neigh amidst the thunder of the war,
As Virtue to oppose her swelling breast
Like a firm shield against the darts of fate.
And when her sons in that rough school have
learn'd

To smile at danger, then the hand that raised,
Shall hush the storm, and lead the shining train
Of peaceful years in bright procession on.
Then shall the shepherd's pipe, the muse's lyre,
On Cyrnus' shores be heard: her grateful sons
With loud acclaim and hymns of cordial praise
Shall hail their high deliverers; every name
To virtue dear be from oblivion snatched
And placed among the stars: but chiefly thine,
Thine, Paoli, with sweetest sound shall dwell
On their applauding lips; thy sacred name,
Endear'd to long posterity, some muse,
More worthy of the theme, shall consecrate

To after-ages, and applauding worlds
Shall bless the godlike man who saved his country.

So vainly wish'd, so fondly hoped the muse :
Too fondly hoped. The iron fates prevail,
And Cyrnus is no more. Her generous sons,
Less vanquish'd than o'erwhelm'd, by numbers
crush'd,

Admired, unaided fell. So strives the moon
In dubious battle with the gathering clouds,
And strikes a splendour through them; till at
length

Storms rolled on storms involve the face of heaven
And quench her struggling fires. Forgive the zeal
That, too presumptuous, whisper'd better things,
And read the book of destiny amiss.
Not with the purple colouring of success
Is virtue best adorn'd: th' attempt is praise
There yet remains a freedom, nobler far
Than kings or senates can destroy or give
Beyond the proud oppressor's cruel grasp
Seated secure, uninjured, undestroy'd;
Worthy of gods :-the freedom of the mind.

THE MOUSE'S PETITION.

O HEAR a pensive prisoner's prayer,
For liberty that sighs:
And never let thine heart be shut
Against the wretch's cries!

For here forlorn and sad I sit.

Within the wiry grate;
And tremble at th' approaching morn,
Which brings impending fate.

If e'er thy breast with freedom glow'd,
And spurn'd a tyrant's chain,
Let not thy strong oppressive force
A free-born mouse detain!

O do not stain with guiltless blood
Thy hospitable hearth;
Nor triumph that thy wiles betray'd
A prize so little worth.

The scatter'd gleanings of a feast
My frugal meals supply;
But if thine unrelenting heart
That slender boon deny,—

The cheerful light, the vital air,
Are blessings widely given;
Let Nature's commoners enjoy
The common gifts of heaven.

The well-taught philosophic mind
To all compassion gives;
Casts round the world an equal eye
And feels for all that lives.

Found in the trap where he had been confined all night by Dr. Priestley, for the sake of making experi ments with different kinds a air.