Three times all in the dead of night Too well the love-lorn maiden knew 'I hear a voice you can not hear, By a false heart and broken vows Was I to blame because his bride Ah Colin! give not her thy vows, Nor thou, fond maid! receive his kiss, To-morrow in the church to wed, Impatient both prepare; But know, fond maid! and know, false man' That Lucy will be there. Then bear my corse, my comrades! bear, This bridegroom blithe to meet; He in his wedding trim so gay, I in my winding sheet.' She spoke; she died. Her corpse was borne The bridegroom blithe to meet; He in his wedding trim so gay, She in her winding sheet. Then what were perjured Colin's thoughts? How were these nuptials kept? The bridesmen flocked round Lucy dead, Confusion, shame, remorse, despair, At once his bosom swell; The damps of death bedewed his brow; He shook, he groaned, he fell. From the vain bride, ah! bride no more! The varying crimson fled, When stretched before her rival's corpse She saw her husband dead. Then to his Lucy's new-made grave Oft at this grave the constant hind With garlands gay and true-love knots They deck the sacred green. But, swain foresworn! whoe'er thou art, And fear to meet him there. From the Elegy' we extract the following lines, which we consider the best it contains: Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone, Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed A fairer spirit, or more welcome shade. In what new region to the just assigned, What new employments please the embodied mind? Of Heaven's decrees, where wondering angels gaze? Or roused by Fancy, meets my waking eyes. If business calls, or crowded courts invite, The unblemished statesman seems to strike my sight; If in the stage I seek to soothe my care, I meet his soul, which breathes in Cato there; If pensive to the rural shades I rove, His step o'ertakes me in the lonely grove; 'T was there of just and good he reasoned strong, There taught us how to live, and (oh! too high Lecture the Twenty-Sixth. ALEXANDER POPE-JOHN GAY-SIR SAMUEL GARTH-SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE -ANNE, COUNTESS OF WINCHELSIA-MATTHEW GREEN-ALLAN RAMSAY. CON (ONTEMPORARY with the poets who occupied our attention during the last two lectures, and united in friendship and in fame with Swift, one of the most conspicuous of them, was Alexander Pope-a poet, the ease, fluency, and accuracy of whose numbers, has placed him at the very head of the class to which he belongs. ALEXANDER POPE was the son of a respectable draper, and was born in the city of London, on the twenty-second of May, 1688. Being, from his infancy, of a very delicate frame, he was taught to read at home, by a maiden aunt, and he learned to write by imitating the letters of the little school manual from which he had learned them, and the other primary works that the studies of his childhood placed in his hands. His father, having acquired an independent fortune, retired to Binfield, in Windsor Forest, and as he belonged to the Roman Church, the future poet was placed under the care of one Taverner, the family priest, by whom he was taught the rudiments of the Latin and Greek languages, at the same time. From Taverner's care, Pope was removed to a Catholic seminary at Twyford, near Winchester, and thence to a school near Hyde Park Corner; but he must have been very unfortunate in his teachers, or of uncertain temper; for before he had reached the twelfth year of his age, he quit school altogether, returned to his father's house, and resolved to educate himself. But we are not to infer that he was inattentive to his studies; for the whole of his early life was that of a severe student. He was a poet in his childhood; and in reference to this circumstance he remarks— As yet a child, and all unknown to fame, I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came. Pope early read the works of Spenser, Waller, and Dryden, but he greatly preferred those of the latter; and while a mere boy prevailed upon a friend to accompany him to a celebrated coffee-house, which Dryden was in |