To bogs, and snares, and death! The time draws near; When, seiz'd with horror, from the face divine, Of thoughtless mirth; or chear your conscious minds, With dread surprize awaken'd, sadly feels Adapt to endless torture; and, accurst And seeks, in vain, to die. The judge supreme, Their vollies rend the skies, and cleave the ground.— With shrieks, the ear; when, from huge Alpine rocks An ancient ridge of sturdy oaks deep-fang d, In furious blaze and smoke. His voice, which form'd From shapeless chaos, the vast moving world, Almighty bids the wheels of nature stop ; And loudly the eternal will proclaims, That time shall be no more. The trumpet's clang Breaks through the silent grave: from putrid forms Not half such terror strikes. The Almighty arm, Let down from heav'n; and scorn'd the wand'ring blaze N With rays divine; whilst daily incense pierc'd Your chearful heads; and reach the immortal crown. Now leaves the skies. Ethereal mountains flow Death, grave, and hell, with all the apostate pow'rs Resistless as their doom. His mighty word, Which rais'd from native earth, the crumbling shrine, Bright agile limbs, from drossy matter freed, You climb the blissful orbs of endless light; **We have carefully followed the author's punctuation throughout this poem, not feeling ourselves at liberty to alter what seems to have been his own peculiar system. NICHOLAS AMHURST. BORN ABOUT 1700.-DIED 1742. Here mark what ills the scholar's life assail, (JOHNSON.) The life of Nicholas Amhurst would abound with instruction, could materials be found from whence to compose it: unfortunately these are but scanty, and the following notices are principally taken from an article by Dr. Kippis in the Biographia Britannica, George Amhurst was vicar of Marden in Kent, and died there in 1707, whether this clergyman was the father or grandfather of Nicholas does not appear. Nicholas Amhurst was born at Marden, but in what year is unknown. He was educated by his grandfather, a clergyman, and at Merchant Taylor's school, in London, from whence he was removed at a fit age to St. John's College, Cambridge. How long he continued at the university is also unknown. One thing appears certain, that he was expelled from thence for alledged irregularities and offence given to the head of his college : what these irregularities were, does not satisfactorily appear: by his own account he was a martyr to his principles, for he affirmed that his disgrace was the consequence of the liberality of his political sentiments, and his attachment to the Hanoverian succession. Whatever it may have been, he meditated, and in some degree effected signal revenge: he removed to London, and commenced the life of an author by attacking with the most unsparing severity, the character, the discipline, and the learning of the university of which he had been a member. In this violent abuse he employed both prose and verse, and he spared neither individuals nor corporations; many of his invectives were personal, and appear to have been both illiberal and unjust. The principal organ through which he conveyed this scandal was a periodical work with the strange title of "Terræ Filius, or the secret history of the University of Oxford;" to which were added, when the papers were collected and published in two volumes 12mo. 1720,— "some remarks upon a late book entitled, University Education, by R. Newton D.D. principal of Hart Hall." Of the origin of his assumed title he gives the following account in the first number:-"It has till of late been a custom, from time immemorial, for one of our family who was called Terræ Filius, to mount the rostrum at Oxford at certain seasons, and divert an innumerable crowd of spectators, who flocked thither to hear him from all parts, with a merry oration, in the Fescennine manner, interspersed with secret history, raillery, and sarcasm, as the occasions of the time supplied the matter. Something like this jovial solemnity were the famous Saturnalian feasts among the Romans.” work of Amhurst appears to have been worthy of its title, containing much abuse, some wit, and probably more malignity and exaggeration. It is now forgotten, and we shall not revive it in the small degree we are able, by further extending our remarks upon it.' The |