EPIDEMIC MORTALITY, from Eccl. xii.

To move unthinking youth to juft regard,
On Judah's plains thus fung the royal bard.
Thy Maker God in early time revere !
Ere evil days, thofe dreadful days, draw near,
When health shall fly, and pleasure leave the plain,
And woe and languor and diftrefs remain;

When stars, nor moon, nor fun, fhall cheer the fkies;
On earth, when Peftilence enrag'd fhall rise;
The rain scarce paft, when threatening clouds return,
And fickly mists afcend, and fouth winds burn;
When the bold guarders of the house shall shake,
And, pain'd, their station at the door forfake;
When the fierce heroes, dreadless in the field,
Bow with disease, and flowly drooping yield;
When, freed from labour, captives idle lye,
Nor, tho' their number's leffen'd, find employ;
When the proud daughters, of their beauty vain,
Griev'd for their friends, or for themselves in pain,
At the high windows fpread their charms no more,
But all fequefter'd in the dark deplore;

When barr'd the gates, and clos'd the doors appear,
And scarce of grinding the faint founds they hear;
Long ere the dawn, when early mourners rife,
The folemn rites of grief to exercise.
Nor fongs are heard, nor mirthful minstrels meet;
Death's in the house, and Silence in the street!
When e'en high places fhall be feats of fear;
Still in the way when danger shall be near;

When

When the thick, fultry, foul, and stagnant air
Unfeen infection fcatters every where;
When the ripe almond fhall be pluck'd no more,
Defpis'd untafted all its luscious ftore!

Wide o'er the land when locufts shall be spread,
Dead all the crowds that on their numbers fed:
When fairest objects fail to move defire,
Of youth extinguish'd all the sprightly fire:
Because the time of defolation's come,
And man swift paffes to his final home;
And penfive mourners range about the street,
And rend their garments, and their bofoms beat.

He likewife availed himself of the fame channel for printing his verfes in the two following inftances, which are all that can be traced with certainty.

VERSES occafioned by the DESCRIPTION of the
ÆOLIAN HARP, in February Magazine, 1754.

Untaught o'er ftrings to draw the rofin'd bow,
Or melting strains on the foft flute to blow,
With others long I mourn'd the want of skill
Refounding roofs with harmony to fill.
Till happy now th' Æolian lyre is known,
And all the powers of mufic are my own.
Swell all thy notes, delightful harp, O! well!
Inflame thy poet to describe thee well,

When the full chorus rifes with the breeze,
Or, flowly finking, leffens by degrees,
To founds more soft than amorous gales disclose,
At evening panting on the blushing rofe;
More fweet than all the notes that organs breathe,
Or tuneful echoes, when they die, bequeathe;
Oft where fone Sylvan temple decks the grove,
The flave of easy indolence I rove;

There the wing'd breeze the lifted fafh pervades,
Each breath is mufic, vocal all the fhades.
Charm'd with the foothing found, at ease reclin'd,
To fancy's pleafing power I yield my mind:
And now enchanted scenes around me rife,
And fome kind Ariel the foft air supplies:
Now lofty Pindus through the fhades I view,
Where all the Nine their tuneful art purfue:
To me the found the panting gale conveys,
And all my heart is extasy and praise.
Now to Arcadian plains at once convey'd,
Some fhepherd's pipe delights his favourite maid;
Mix'd with the murmurs of a neighbouring stream,
I hear soft notes that fuit an amorous theme!

Ah! then a victim to the fond deceit,

My heart begins with fierce defires to beat;
To fancy'd fighs I real fighs return,
By turns I languish, and by turns I burn.
Ah! Delia, hafte! and here attentive prove,
Like me that, "mufic is the voice of love:"
So fhall I mourn my ruftic ftrains no more,
While pleas'd you liften, who could frown before.
Hertfordshire, Nov. 15, 1754-

R. S.

Gentle

Gentleman's Magazine, July, 1758.

To FEA R.

O thou dread foe of honour, wealth, and fame, Whose touch can quell the strong, the fierce can tame, Relentless Fear! ah! why did fate ordain

My trembling heart to own thy iron reign?
There are, thrice happy, who disdain thy sway:
The merchant wand'ring o'er the watry way;
The chief ferene before th' affaulted wall;
The climbing statesman thoughtlefs of his fall;
All whom the love of wealth or power inspires,
And all who burn with proud ambition's fires:
But peaceful bards thy conftant presence know,
O thou! of every glorious deed the foe!
Of thee the filent ftudious race complains,
And learning groans a captive in thy chains.
The fecret wifh when some fair object moves,
And cautious reafon what we with approves,
Thy Gorgon front forbids to grasp the prize,
And feas are spread between, and mountains rife!
Thy magic arts a thousand phantoms raise,
And fancy'd deaths and dangers fill our ways:
With fmiling hope you wage eternal strife,
And envious fnatch the cup of joy from life.
O leave, tremendous power! the blameless breast,
Of guilt alone, the tyrant, and the guest.
Go, and thy train of fable horrors fpread,
Where Murder meditates the future dead;

Where Rapine watches for the gloom of night,
And lawless paffion pants for other's right;
Go, to the bad but from the good recede,
No more the foe of every glorious deed!

The last two copies of verfes, which are fuperior to the first, are spirited and poetical: it is obfervable, that with the two first he has ufed the fignature, R. S.

Befides the laft verfes on Fear, Scott wrote an ode on the fame fubject about the year 1755, which he fent for the infpection of his friend Turner; it appears, likewise, that he wrote several paftorals about the fame time, for Turner, in his letter of January 1755, fpeaks of two lines in his fixth paftoral, which he prefers to two of Pope; but it cannot be known if any, or what use was made of these in his last publications.

In the year 1757, Turner, who had been for fome time preparing for the miniftry, left Dr. Jennings on account

of