to have destroyed herself in France, in consequence of her affections being blighted by the tyranny of an uncle, and the following are some of the more pathetic lines in which her loss is deplored: * What can atone, oh ever injured shade, * * * * * * So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name, "Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be ! At twenty-five Pope's reputation, as a poet, was established. His next work was a translation of the Iliad and part of the Odyssey-both fascinating and brilliant translations, though wanting the simple majesty and unaffected grandeur of the heathen poet. His principal satirical poem is the Dunciad, a work of misdirected talent, and full of sentiments inconsistent with the character of a Christian author. At the suggestion of Lord Bolingbroke, his next production was the Essay on Man, in which he embodied a series of arguments respecting the human being, in relation to the universe, to himself, to society, and to the pursuit of happiness. This was published in 1733, and displays the poet's extraordinary power of managing argument in verse, and of compressing his thoughts into clauses of the most energetic brevity, as well as of expanding them into passages glittering with every poetic ornament. Yet the work abounds in theological errors. His Letters are elegant and sprightly, but are too evidently written for parade to be agreeable. He died in 1744, at the age of fifty-six. The following fine passage is from the Essay on Man: PROVIDENCE VINDICATED IN THE PRESENT STATE OF Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate; From brutes what men, from inen what spirits know; And now a bubble burst, and now a world. Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar, Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense, SECTION VII. THOMAS GRAY (1716-1771) was professor of modern languages and history in the University of Cambridge. His most popular poem is his Elegy, written in a country church-yard, in 1750. The charm of his writings is to be traced to the naturally exquisite ear of the poet, having been trained to consummate skill in harmony, by long familiarity with the finest models in the most poetical of all languages, the Greek and Italian. In regard to the " Progress of Poetry," and "The Bard," it is said, that there is not an ode in the English language which is constructed like these two compositions; with such power, such majesty, and such sweetness; with such proportioned pauses and just cadences; with such regulated measures of the verse. ODE ON THE DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE. Ah happy hills, ah pleasing shade, Ah fields beloved in vain, Where once my careless childhood play'd, I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow, As, waving fresh their gladsome wing, And, redolent of joy and youth, * To breathe a second spring. Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed, Less pleasing when possess'd; And lively cheer, of vigor born; No sense have they of ills to come, Yet see how, all around them, wait The ministers of human fate, To each his sufferings: all are men, The unfeeling, for his own. Yet ah, why should they know their fate! AN ELEGY WRITTEN IN A CHURCH-YARD. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, Full many a gem of purest ray serene * The dark, unfathom'd caves of ocean bear; Fair laughs the morn and soft the zephyr blows, Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm; It would be idle to descant on the diction or imagery of verses like these. We will only advert to the prophetic intimation of the catastrophe in the last clause. Had the poet described the tempest itself with the power of Virgil in the first book of his Æneid, it would have failed in this instance to produce the effect of sublime and ineffable horror, of which a glimpse appears in the background, while the gallant vessel is sailing with wind, and tide, and sunshine, on a sea of glory. All the sweeping fury of the whirlwind, awake and ravening over "his evening prey," would have been less terrible than his "grim repose;" and the shrieks and struggles of drowning mariners less affecting than the sight of Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm," "regardless" of the inevitable doom on which they were already verging. SECTION VIII.. JAMES BEATTIE (1736-1803), a native of Scotland, was the last of those who can properly be placed in the first order of the poets of this time. In 1771, while professor of moral philos. ophy at Aberdeen, he published his celebrated poem, The Minstrel, which describes, in the stanza of Spenser, the progress of the imagination and feelings of a young and rustic poet. Beattie also wrote several philosophical and controversial works, which attracted considerable attention in their day. His poetry is characterized by a peculiar meditative pathos. The contemplation of the works of Nature is recommended in the following stanzas: Oh, how canst thou renounce the boundless store All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven! X. These charms shall work thy soul's eternal health, U |