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.

That life protracted is protracted woe.

But grant, the virtues of a temp’rate prime Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy,

Bless with an age, exempt from scorn or crime; And shuts up all the passages of joy:

An age that melts with unperceiv'd decay, In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour, And glides in modest innocence away; The fruit autumnal, and the vernal flow'r; Whose peaceful day benevolence endears, With listless eyes the dotard views the store, Whose night congratulating conscience cheers; He views, and wonders that they please no The gen'ral fav’rite as the gen'ral friend:

more;

Such age there is, and who shall wish its end? Now pall the tasteless meats, and joyless wines, Yet ev'n on this her load Misfortune flings, And Luxury with sighs her slave resigns. To press the weary minutes' flagging wings:

New sorrow rises as the day returns,
A sister sickens, or a daughter mourns.

Now kindred Merit fills the sable bier,
The still returning tale, and ling'ring jest, Now lacerated Friendship claims a tear;
Perplex the fawning niece, and pamper'd guest, Year chases year, decay pursues decay;
While growing hopes scarce awe the gath'ring Still drops some joy from with’ring life away;

sneer,

New forms arise, and diff'rent views engage, And scarce a legacy can bribe to hear:

Superfluous lags the vet'ran on the stage, The watchful guests still hint the last offence; Till pitying Nature signs the last release, The daughter's petulance, the son's expence,

And bids afflicted worth retire to peace. Improve his heady rage with treach'rous skill, But few there are whom hours like these And mould his passions till they make his will.

await, Unnumber'd maladies his joints invade, Who set unclouded in the gulf of Fate. Lay siege to life, and press the dire blockade; From Lydia's monarch should the search descend, But unextinguish'd av’rice still remains, By Solon caution’d to regard his end, And dreaded losses aggravate his pains;

In life's last scene what prodigies surprise, He turns, with anxious heart and crippled hands, Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! His bonds of debt, and mortgages of lands; From Marlb’rough's eyes the streams of dotage Or views his coffers with suspicious eyes,

flow, Unlocks his gold, and counts it till he dies. And Swift expires a driv'ler and a show.

Armstrong.

John Armstrong ward 1709 zu Castleton in Roxburgshire geboren, studirte Arzneiwissenschaft in Edinburg, promovirte daselbst 1732 und liess sich dann in London als Arzt nieder, beschäftigte sich jedoch nebenbei viel mit literarischen Arbeiten. Im Jahre 1760 begleitete er die englische Armee als Militairarzt, worauf er 1763 nach London zurückkehrte, das er, kurze Ausflüge abgerechnet, nun nicht wieder verliess. Er starb daselbst 1779.

Armstrong schrieb neben Kleinerem zwei didactische Gedichte, von denen das erstere the Economy of Love ihm wegen seiner Lüsternheit gerechten Tadel zuzog, das zweite dagegen: the Art of preserving Health allgemeinen Beifall fand und sich als eins der besten englischen Lehrgedichte jener Zeit im Andenken erhalten hat. Es ist eine geistreiche poetische Diaetetik in vier

Büchern, voll feiner Bemerkungen und guter Schilderungen in einer correcten, anmuthigen und einfachen Sprache verfasst. Sie erschien besonders gedruckt zuerst London 1744, dann in seinen Miscellanies London 1770 und findet sich auch nebst anderen Gedichten von ihm, im 102. Bde der Bell'schen und im 10. Bde der Anderson'schen Sammlung.

swarms.

Select Pas sa ge s

Rolls toward the western main. Hail, sacred from Armstrong's Art of Preserving

flood! Health.

May still thy hospitable swains be blest

In rural innocence; thy mountains still What does not fade? the tower that long had Teem with the fleecy race; thy tuneful woods

stood

For ever flourish; and thy vales look gay The crush of thunder and the warring winds, With painted meadows, and the golden grain! Shook by the slow, but sure destroyer, Time, Oft, with thy blooming sons, when life was new, Now hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base. Sportive and petulant, and charm'd with toys, And flinty pyramids, and walls of brass, In thy transparent eddies have I lav'd: Descend; the Babylonian spires are sunk; Oft trac'd with patient steps thy fairy banks, Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down. With the well-imitated fly to hook Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones, The eager trout, and with the slender line And tottering empires crush by their own weight. And yielding rod solicit to the shore This huge rotundity we tread grows old; The struggling panting pray: while vernal clouds And all those worlds that roll around the Sun, And tepid gales obscur'd the ruffled pool, The Sun himself, shall die; and ancient Night And from the deeps call’d forth the wanton Again involve the desolate abyss : 'Till the great Father through the lifeless gloom Extend his arm to light another world, And bid new planets roll by other laws. For through the regions of unbounded space, Where unconfin’d Omnipotence has room,

How to live happiest; how avoid the pains, Being, in various systems, fluctuates still The disappointments, and disgusts of those Between creation and abhorr'd decay:

Who would in pleasure all their hours employ; It ever did, perhaps, and ever will.

The precepts here of a divine old man New worlds are still emerging from the deep; I could recite. Though old, he still retain'd The old descending, in their turns to rise. His manly sense, and energy of mind.

Virtuous and wise he was,

but not severe; He still remember'd that he once was young: His easy presence check'd no decent joy.

Him even the dissolute admir'd; for he But if the breathless chase o'er hill and dale A graceful looseness when he pleas'd put on, Exceed your strength, a sport of less fatigue, And laughing could instruct. Much had he read Not less delightful, the prolific stream

Much more had seen: he studied from the life, Affords. The crystal rivulet, that o'er

And in th' original perus'd mankind. A stony channel rolls its rapid maze,

Vers'd in the woes and vanities of life, Swarms with the silver fry. Such, trough the He pitied man: and much he pitied those

bounds

Whom falsely-smiling fate has curs'd with means Of pastoral Stafford, runs the brawling Trent; To dissipate their days in quest of joy. Such Eden, sprung from Cumbrian mountains; “Our aim is happiness; 'tis yours, 'tis mine,”

such

He said ; “'tis the pursuit of all that live: The Esk, o'erhung with woods; and such the Yet few attain it, if 'twas e'er attain'd.

stream

But they the widest wander from the mark, On whose Arcadians banks I first drew air, Who through the flowery paths of sauntering joy Liddel; till now, except in Doric lays Seek this coy goddess; that from stage to stage Tun’d to her murmurs by her love-sick swains, Invites us still, but shifts as we pursue. Unknown in song; though not a purer stream, For, not to name the pains that pleasure brings Through meads more Aowery, more romantic To counterpoise itself, relentless fate

groves,

Forbids that we through gay voluptuous wilds

s*

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Should ever roam: and were the fates more kind, Of bounteous Providence; and teach the breast
Our narrow luxuries would soon grow stale: That generous luxury the gods enjoy."
Were these exhaustless, nature would grow sick, Thus, in his graver vein, the friendly sage
And, cloy'd with pleasure, squeamishly com- Sometimes declaim'd. Of right and wrong he
plain

taught That all is vanity, and life a dream.

Truths as refin'd as ever Athens heard; Let nature rest: be busy for yourself,

And (strange to tell!) he practis'd what he And for your friend; be busy even in vain,

preach'd.
Rather than tease her sated appetites.
Who never fasts, no banquet e'er enjoys;
Who never toils or watches, never sleeps.

There is a charm, a power that sways the Let nature rest: and when the taste of joy

breast, Grows keen, indulge; but shun satiety.

Bids every passion revel or be still; “'Tis not for mortals always to be blest. Inspires with rage, or all your cares dissolves; But him the least the dull or painful hours Can sooth distraction, and almost despair. Of life oppress, whom sober sense conducts, That power is music: far beyond the stretch And virtue, through this labyrinth we tread. Of those unmeaning warblers on our stage: Virtue and sense I mean not to disjoin; Those clumsy heroes, those fat-headed gods, Virtue and sense are one; and, trust me, still Who move no passion justly but contempt: A faithless heart betrays the head unsound. Who, like our dancers, light indeed and strong, Virtue (for mere good-nature is a fool)

Do wondrous feats, but never heard of grace. Is sense and spirit with humanity:

The fault is ours; we bear those monstrous arts, 'Tis sometimes angry, and its frown confounds; Good heaven! we praise them: we, with loudest 'Tis even vindictive, but in vengeance just.

peals, Knaves fain would laugh at it; some great ones Applaud the fool that highest lifts his heels;

dare;

And, with insipid show of rapture, die
But at his heart the most undaunted son

On ideot notes impertinently long.
Of fortune dreads its name and aweful charms. But he the muse's laurel justly shares,
To noblest uses this determines wealth;

A poet he, and touch'd with heaven's own fire, This is the solid pomp of prosperous days; Who, with bold rage or solemn pomp of sounds, The peace and shelter of adversity.

Inflames, exalts, and ravishes the soul; And if you pant for glory, build your fame Now tender, plaintive, sweet almost to pain, On this foundation, which the secret shock In love dissolves you; now in sprightly strains Defies of envy and all-sapping time

Breathes a gay rapture through your thrilling The gaudy gloss of fortune only strikes

breast;
The vulgar eye; the suffrage of the wise Or melts the heart with airs divinely sad;
The praise that's worth ambition, is attain'd Or wakes to horror the tremendous strings
By sense alone, and dignity of mind.

Such was the bard, whose heavenly strains "Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul,

of old Is the best gift of Heaven: a happiness

Appeas'd the fiend of melancholy Saul.
That even above the smiles and frowns of fate Such was, if old and heathen fame say true,
Exalts great Nature's favourites; a wealth The man who bade the Theban domes ascend,
That ne'er encumbers, nor can be transferr'd. And tam'd the savage nations with his song;
Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd; And such the Thracian, whose melodious lyre,
Or dealt by chance to shield a lucky knave, Tun'd to soft woe, made all the mountains weep;
Or throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.

Sooth'd ev'n th' inexorable powers of hell,
But for one end, one much-neglected use, And half-redeem'd his lost Eurydice.
Are riches worth your care; (for Nature's wants Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,
Are few, and without opulence supplied ;) Expels diseases, softens every pain,
This noble end is, to produce the soul;

Subdues the rage of poison, and the plague; To show the virtues in their fairest light; And hence the wise of ancient days ador'd To make humanity the minister

One Power of physic, melody and song.

Glover.

Richard Glover, der Sohn eines Kaufmanns, ward 1712 in London geboren, widmete sich dem Stande seines Vaters, ward 1761 Parlamentsmitglied für Weymouth und starb allgemein geachtet 1786. Er hinterliess zwei Tragödieen: Boadicea und Medea, mehrere kleinere Poesicen und ein grösseres Epos Leonidas, nebst einer Fortsetzung: The Athenaid. Dieses Heldengedicht war es vorzüglich, das ihm grossen Ruhm erwarb, aber er überlebte denselben. Es ist ein Werk edelster Gesinnung, roll trefflicher Gedanken, reich an meisterhaften Schilderungen, consequent durchgeführt und correct, aber trotz dem Allem doch nur Prosa in poetischer Form und lässt allen Bestrebungen des Dichters ungeachtet, auf das Gemüth eben so sehr wie auf den Verstand zu wirken, kalt und theilnahmlos; man wird weder ergriffen noch begeistert durch dasselbe, obwohl der Stoff alle Mittel zu tieferer Wirkung darbietet. Aehnliches lässt sich von seinen beiden Trauerspielen sagen, die, in antiker Form gehalten, veranlassen die Kunst des Verfassers zu bewundern, der Alles besitzt, nur nicht poetische Schöpfungskraft. Dagegen hat aber Glover in der unten mitgetheilten Ballade ein Meisterwerk hinterlassen, das zu dem Besten gehört, was die gerade in dieser Gattung so reiche englische Nationalliteratur aufzuweisen vermag.

William Shenstone ward 1714 zu Hales-Owen in Shropshire geboren, erhielt eine wissenschaftliche Bildung in Oxford und zog sich dann auf sein väterliches Erbe, das Landgut the Leasowes zurück, das er sehr verschönerte und wo er 1763 in stiller Abgeschiedenheit von der Welt starb. Er zeichnete sich vorzüglich als lyrischer und elegischer Dichter durch Wärme des Gefühls, tiefe Innigkeit und Einfachheit aus. Seine Werke erschienen gesammelt erst nach seinem Tode, London 1764, 3 Bde in 8.; sie enthalten Idyllen, Oden, Balladen und mehrere grössere Poesieen, unter denen das Urtheil des Herkules zwar correct aber geistlos, dagegen die Dorfschulmeisterin in Spenser's Manier eine sehr gelungene Leistung ist. Shenstone's Gedichte befinden sich im 99 — 100. Bde der Bell'schen und im 9. der Anderson'schen Sammlung.

Select Pa s s ages

And work the simple vassals mickle woe; from Shenstone's School-mistress.

For not a wind might curl the leaves that

blew, In every village mark'd with little spire, But their limbs shudder'd, and heir pulse Embower'd in trees, and hardly known to

beat low; Fame,

And as they look'd they found their horrour There dwells in lowly shed, and mean attire,

grew, A matron old, whom we School - mistress And shap'd it into rods, and tingled at the view.

name; Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame; They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent, So have I seen (who has not, may conceive) Aw'd by the power of this relentless dame;

A lifeless phantom near a garden plac'd; And oft-times, on vagaries idly bent,

So doth it wanton birds of peace bereave, For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely

Of sport, of song, of pleasure, of repast;
shent.
They start, they stare, they wheel, they look

aghast;
And all in sight doth rise a birchen tree, Sad servitude! such comfortless annoy
Which Learning near her little dome did stowe; May no bold Briton's riper age e'er taste!
Whilom a twig of small regard to see,

No superstition clog his dance of joy,
Though now so wide its waving branches flow;'No vision empty, vain, his native bliss destroy.

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