SPECIMEN OF SCOTT'S PROSE. 413 A loud shout from the spectators, waving of scarfs and handkerchiefs, and general acclamations, attested the interest taken by the spectators in this encounter; the most equal, as well as the best performed, which had graced the day. But no sooner had the knights resumed their station than the clamour of applause was hushed into a silence so deep and so dead, that it seemed the mul titude were afraid even to breathe." A few minutes' pause having been allowed, that the combatants and their horses might recover breath, Prince John with his truncheon signed to the trumpets to sound the onset. The champions a second time sprang from their stations, and closed in the centre of the lists, with the same speed, the same dexterity, the same violence, but not the same equal fortune as before. In this second encounter, the Templar aimed at the centre of his antagonist's shield, and struck it so fair and forcibly, that his spear went to shivers, and the Disinherited Knight reeled in his saddle. On the other hand, that champion had, in the beginning of his career, directed the point of his lance towards BoisGuilbert's shield, but, changing his aim almost in the moment of encounter, he addressed it to the helmet, a mark more difficult to hit, but which, if attained, rendered the shock more irresistible. Fair and true he hit the Norman on the 'visor, where his lance's point kept hold of the bars. Yet, even at this disadvantage, the Templar sustained his high reputation; and had not the girths of his saddle burst, he might not have been unhorsed. As it chanced, however, saddle, horse, and man rolled on the ground under a cloud of dust. James Montgomery. Robert Tannahill Percy Shelley. John Keats. Supplementary List. DRAMATISTS. Hannah More. Brinsley Sheridan. Supplementary List. HISTORIANS. William Roscoe. Sir James Mackintosh. John Lingard. Thomas M'Crie. James Mill. Henry Hallam. NOVELISTS. Henry Mackenzie. ESSAYISTS AND CRITICS. William Cobbett. John Foster. William Hazlitt. Sydney Smith. Lord Jeffrey. OWING to the multitude of names that crowd upon us as we approach our own day, we must, in this and the similar chapter of the Ninth Era, depart from the simple division into Poets and Prose Writers, hitherto adopted in the last chapter of each period, and class authors under nine heads, viz., Poets, Dramatists, Historians, Novelists, Essayists and Critics, Scientific Writers, Theologians and Scholars, Travellers, and Translators. Those names which limited space prevents us from noticing at any length, will form a list at the end of each section. POETS. SAMUEL ROGERS, a London banker, whose reputation as a poet stands very high, was born in 1763, at Stoke Newington, a metropolitan suburb. His chief poems are The Pleasures of Memory ROGERS, HOGG, MONTGOMERY, MOORE. 415 (1792); Columbus (1812); Human Life (1819); and Italy, of which the first part appeared in 1822. A graceful and gentle spirit fills the poetry of Rogers. His love for the beautiful in nature and in art led him to delight in "a setting sun, or lake among the mountains," and at the same time to fill his house in St. James's Place with the finest pictures wealth could buy. The breakfasts he gave in this pleasant home used to draw some of the first men in London round his table. Never weary of benevolence, especially to the literary struggler, this kindly, clever man, lived far into the present century, dying in 1855. JAMES HOGG, the Ettrick Shepherd, was born in Selkirkshire in 1770. He began by writing songs, and gathered some pieces for Scott's "Border Minstrelsy." The Queen's Wake, a legendary poem published in 1813, stamped him as a true poet. Among the ballads supposed to be sung to Queen Mary is the exquisite fairy tale, Kilmeny. From the nature of his themes, this poet may be classed with Spenser, as a bard of romantic and legendary strain. Madoc of the Moor, in Spenser's stanza, and The Pilgrims of the Sun, in blank-verse, are among the most important of his later works. Many of his songs are very fine; and several novels, too, came from his untaught pen. As a farmer he was unsuccessful, like Burns. His chief residence was a cottage at Altrive, where he died of dropsy in 1835. JAMES MONTGOMERY, well known as the author of two richly descriptive poems, Greenland and The Pelican Island, was born in 1771, at Irvine in Ayrshire. Much of his life was spent in the wearing toil of a journalist, as editor of the Sheffield Iris. He was twice imprisoned for imputed libels. In addition to the works already named, he wrote The Wanderer in Switzerland, The West Indies, Prison Amusements, The World before the Flood, and many other poems. He died in 1854, having long enjoyed a pension of £200 a year. THOMAS MOORE was born in Dublin on the 28th of May 1779. At fourteen he contributed verse to a magazine. Having studied at Trinity College, he entered the Middle Temple in London as a student of law. His first important literary undertaking MRS. HEMANS, HEBER, HUNT. 417 He died in 1844. was born at Liver Amid the lovely Her marriage with Appearing before the Baltic, and Ye Mariners of England, obtained for him a government pension. In prose he won considerable praise for the critical notices attached to his Specimens of the British Poets. He edited the "New Monthly Magazine" for ten years. FELICIA HEMANS (maiden name, Browne) pool in 1793, the daughter of a merchant. scenery of Wales her youth was spent. Captain Hemans was far from happy. public as a poetess in her fifteenth year, she continued at intervals to produce works of exquisite grace and tenderness, until some three weeks before her death, which took place in Dublin on the 16th of May 1835. The Forest Sanctuary is her finest poem; but to name those lyrics and shorter poems from her pen, which live in the memory like favourite tunes, would be an endless task. Such are The Voice of Spring, The Graves of a Household, The Battle of Morgarten, The Palm Tree, and The Sunbeam. Her tragedy, The Vespers of Palermo, though abounding in beauty, has not enough of dramatic effect to suit the stage. REGINALD HEBER was born in 1783, at Malpas in Cheshire. Educated at Oxford, and there distinguished for both Latin and English verse-especially for his fine prize poem, Palestine-he became a Fellow of All Souls' College, and entered the Church. In 1809 he published Europe, or Lines on the Present War. Appointed Bishop of Calcutta in 1823, he was in the full career of active usefulness, when he died suddenly in his bath one morning at Trichinopoly, having worn the mitre only three years. This gentle poet is, perhaps, best known by such sweet missionary hymns as that beginning, "From Greenland's icy mountains." LEIGH HUNT, born in 1784, at Southgate in Middlesex, went to school at Christ's Hospital with Charles Lamb. Poetry and journalism began early to employ his lively pen. In 1808 Hunt and his brother started The Examiner, a weekly paper, in which he made some statements about the Prince Regent that led to his imprisonment for libel. Turning his cell and prison-yard into a little bower of sweet flowers, he lived there for two years, receiving visits from Byron, Moore, and other sympathetic friends. His |