him with writing 'to the rumbling of his chariot-wheels.' Blackmore afterward wrote a number of other epic poems, all of which have sunk into oblivion except one on the Creation, which Johnson says, 'wants neither harmony of numbers, accuracy of thought, nor elegance of diction.' Addison admired this poet's irreproachable private character, and extended his particular friendship to him. Blackmore died on the eighth of October, 1729. The design of the 'Creation,' by far his best performance, was to demonstrate the existence of a Divine Eternal Mind. The author recites the proof of a Deity from natural and physical phenomena, and afterward reviews the systems of the Epicureans and the Fatalists; concluding with a hymn to the Creator of the world. The piety of Blackmore is everywhere apparent in his writings; but the genius of poetry too often evaporates amid his common-place illustrations and prosing declamation. The following passage, addressed to the disciples of Lucretius, exhibits this author's style under its most favorable aspect:

You ask us why the soil the thistle breeds;

Why its spontaneous birth are thorns and weeds;
Why for the harvest it the harrow needs?
The Author might a nobler world have made,
In brighter dress the hills and vales arrayed,
And all its face in flowery scenes displayed:

The glebe untilled might plenteous crops have borne,
And brought forth spicy groves instead of thorn:
Rich fruit and flowers, without the gardener's pains,

Might every hill have crowned, have honoured all the plains:

This Nature might have boasted, had the Mind

Who formed the spacious universe designed

That man, from labour free, as well as grief,

Should pass in lazy luxury his life.

But he his creature gave a fertile soil,
Fertile, but not without the owner's toil,
That some reward his industry should crown,
And that his food in part might be his own.
But while insulting you arraign the land,
Ask why it wants the plough, or labourer's hand;
Kind to the marble rocks, you ne'er complain
That they, without the sculptor's skill and pain,
No perfect statue yield, no basse relieve,

Or finished column for the palace give.

Yet if from hills unlaboured figures come,

Man might have ease enjoyed, though never fame.

ANNE, Countess of Winchelsea, belongs to this period, but of her life and history very little is known. She was the daughter of Sir James Kingsmill of Southampton, and died in 1720. The Nocturnal Reverie, her principal poem, is full of calm and contemplative observation, and the versification is sweet and flowing. 'It is remarkable,' says Wordsworth, 'that, excepting 'The Nocturnal Reverie,' and a passage or two in the 'Windsor Forest of Pope,' the poetry of the period intervening between the publica

tion of 'Paradise Lost' and the 'Seasons,' does not contain a single new image of external nature.'

A NOCTURNAL REVERIE.

In such a night, when every louder wind
Is to its distant cavern safe confined,
And only gentle zephyr fans his wings,
And lovely Philomel still waking sings;

Or from some tree, formed for the owl's delight,
She, halloaing clear, directs the wanderer right:
In such a night, when passing clouds give place,
Or thinly vail the heaven's mysterious face;
When in some river overhung with green,
The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen;
When freshened grass now bears itself upright,
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite,
Whence springs the woodbine, and the bramble rose,
And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows;
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet chequers still with red the dusky brakes;
When scattered glow-worms, but in twilight fine
Show trivial beauties watch their hour to shine;
Whilst Salisbury stands the test of every light,
In perfect charms and perfect virtue bright;
When odours which declined repelling day,
Through temperate air uninterrupted stray;
When darkened groves their softest shadows wear,
And falling waters we distinctly hear;

When through the gloom more venerable shows
Some ancient fabric, awful in repose;
While sun-burnt hills their swarthy looks conceal,
And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale :
When the loosed horse now, as his pasture leads,
Comes slowly grazing through the adjoining meads,
Whose stealing pace and lengthened shade we fear,
Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear;
When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food,
And unmolested kine rechew the cud;
When curlews cry beneath the village walls,
And to her straggling brood the partridge calls;
Their short-lived jubilee the creatures keep,
Which but endures whilst tyrant man does sleep;
When a sedate content the spirit feels,

And no fierce light disturbs, whilst it reveals;
But silent musings urge the mind to seek
Something too high for syllables to speak;

Till the free soul to a composedness charmed,
Finding the elements of rage disarmed,

O'er all below a solemn quiet grown,

Joys in the inferior world, and thinks it like her own:

In such a night let me abroad remain,

Till morning breaks, and all 's confused again;

Our cares, our toils, our clamours are renewed,

Or pleasures seldom reached again pursued.

Besides the 'Nocturnal Reverie,' the Countess wrote many other sweet poems, of which the following gem is a specimen :

LIFE'S PROGRESS.

How gayly is at first begun

Our life's uncertain race!

Whilst yet that sprightly morning sun,
With which we just set out to run,
Enlightens all the place.

How smiling the world's prospect lies,
How tempting to go through!
Not Canaan to the prophet's eyes,
From Pizgah, with a sweet surprise,
Did more inviting show.

How soft the first ideas prove

Which wander through our minds!
How full the joys, how free the love,
Which does that early season move,
As flowers the western winds!

Our sighs are then but venal air,
But April drops our tears,
Which swiftly passing, all grows fair,
Whilst beauty compensates our care,
And youth such vapour clears.

But oh! too soon, alas! we climb,
Scarce feeling we ascend

The gently-rising hill of Time,

From whence with grief we see that prime,

And all its sweetness end.

The die now cast, our station known,

Fond expectation past:

The thorns which former days had sown,

To crops of late repentance grown,
Through which we toil at last.

Whilst every care 's a driving harm,

That helps to bear us down;

Which faded smiles no more can charm,

But every tear 's a winter storm,

And every look 's a frown.

MATTHEW GREEN, the last English poet of the period that we are now contemplating, was born of dissenting parents, in 1696. His advantages of early education seem to have been limited, but by persevering application he raised himself to a position of respectability, and finally obtained a situation in the custom-house, where he remained until his death, which occurred in 1737.

Green's natural disposition was cheerful, but this did not prevent occasional attacks of low spirits or spleen; and having tried all imaginable

remedies for the malady, he at length conceived himself able to treat it in a philosophical spirit, and, therefore, wrote The Spleen, a poem which adverts to all its forms, and their apposite remedies, in a style of comic verse resembling Hudibras, but which is still allowed to be eminently original. 'The Spleen,' was first published by Glover, the author of 'Leonidas;' Gray afterward remarked that 'even the wood-notes of Green often break out into strains of real poetry and music.' As this poem is comparatively little known to modern readers, we present a larger extract from it than we otherwise should.

VOL. II.-E

Who buzz in rhyme, and, like blind flies,
Err with their wings for want of eyes.
Poor authors worshiping a calf;

Deep tragedies that make us laugh;
Folks, things prophetic to dispense,
Making the past the future tense;
The popish dubbing of a priest;
Fine epithets on knaves deceased;
A miser starving to be rich;

The prior of Newgate's dying speech;

A jointured widow's ritual state;
Two Jews disputing tête-à-tête;
New almanacs composed by seers;
Experiments on felon's ears;

Disdainful prudes, who ceaseless ply
The superb muscle of the eye;

A coquette's April-weather face;

A Queen 'brough mayor behind his mace,

And fops in military show,

Are sovereign for the case in view.

If spleen-fogs rise at close of day,

I clear my evening with a play,
Or to some concert take my way.
The company, the shine of lights,
The scenes of humour, music's flights,
Adjust and set the soul to rights.

In rainy days keep double guard,
Or spleen will surely be too hard;
Which, like those fish by sailors met,
Fly highest while their wings are wet.

66

In such dull weather, so unfit

To enterprise a work of wit;
When clouds one yard of azure sky,
That's fit for simile, deny,

I dress my face with studious looks,
And shorten tedious hours with books.
But if dull fogs invade the head,
That memory minds not what is read,
I sit in window dry as ark,

And on the drowning world remark:
Or to some coffee-house I stray

For news, the manna of a day,

And from the hipped discourses gather,
That politics go by the weather.

Sometimes I dress, with women sit,

And chat away the gloomy fit;
Quit the stiff garb of serious sense,
And wear a gay impertinence,
Nor think we speak with any pains,
But lay on fancy's neck the reins.

*

Law, licens'd breaking of the peace,
To which vacation is disease;
A gipsy diction scarce known well
By the magi, who law fortunes tell,

I shun; nor let it breed within
Anxiety, and that the spleen.

I never game, and rarely bet,

Am loath to lend or run in debt.
No Compter-writs we agitate;

Who moralizing pass the gate,

And then mine eyes on spendthrifts turn,
Who vainly o'er their bondage mourn.
Wisdom, before beneath their care,

Pays her upbraiding visits there,

And forces folly through the grate

Her panegyric to repeat.

This view, profusely when inclined,
Enters a caveat in the mind;
Experience, joined with common sense,
To mortals is a providence.

Reforming schemes are none of mine;
To mend the world 's a vast design:

Like those who tug a little boat

To pull to them the ship afloat,

While to defeat their labour'd end,

And once both wind and steam contend:

Success herein is seldom seen,

And zeal, when baffled, turns to spleen.
Happy the man, who, innocent,
Grieves not at ills he can't prevent;
His skiff does with the current glide,
Not puffing pulled against the tide.
He, paddling by the scoffing crowd,
Sees unconcerned life's wager rowed,