None led through youth a gayer life than he,
Cheerful in converse, smart in repartee.
But with old age its vices came along,
And in narration he 's extremely long,
Exact in circumstance, and nice in dates,
On every subject he his tale relates.

If you name one of Marlbro's ten campaigns,
He tells you its whole history for your pains,
And Blenheim's field becomes by his reciting
As long in telling as he was in fighting;
His old desire to please is well expressed,
His hat 's well cocked, his periwig's well dressed;
He rolls his stockings still, white gloves he wears,
And in the boxes with the beaux appears;
His eyes through wrinkled corners cast their rays,
Still he bows graceful, still soft things he says:
And, still remembering that he once was young,
He strains his crippled knees and struts along.
The room he entered smiling, which bespoke
Some worn-out compliment or threadbare joke;
For, not perceiving loss of parts, he yet
Grasps at the shade of his departed wit.

In 1822, the fugitive poetry of Williams was collected and published in three volumes; but the work is carelessly edited, and many gross pieces not written by the satirical poet were admitted.

JOHN DYER.

JOHN DYER was a native of Wales, being born at Aberglasslyn, Carmarthenshire, in 1698 or 1699. His father was a solicitor, and intended his son for the same profession. The latter, however, had a taste for the fine arts, and rambled over his native country, filling his mind with a love of nature, and his portfolio with sketches of her most beautiful and striking objects. The sister art of poetry also claimed his regard, and during his excursions he wrote 'Grongar Hill' (1726), the production on which his fame rests, and where it rests securely. Dyer next made a tour to Italy, to study painting. He does not seem to have excelled as an artist, though he was an able sketcher. On his return in 1740, he published anonymously another poem, 'The Ruins of Rome,' in blank verse. One short passage, often quoted, is conceived, as Johnson remarks, 'with the mind of a poet:'

The pilgrim oft

At dead of night, 'mid his orison, hears,
Aghast, the voice of time, disparting towers,
Tumbling all precipitate down dashed,

Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon.

Seeing, probably, that he had little chance of succeeding as an artist, Dyer entered the church, and obtained successively the livings of Calthrop in Leicestershire, of Coningsby in Huntingdonshire, and of Belchford and Kirkby in Lincolnshire. He published in 1757 his longest poetical work, 'The Fleece,' devoted to

The care of sheep, the labours of the loom.

The subject was not a happy one. How can a man write poetically, it was remarked by Johnson, of serges and druggets? Yet Dyer did write poetically on his unpromising theme, and Akenside assisted him with some finishing touches. One critic asked Dodsley how old the author of The Fleece' was; and learning that he was in advanced life,' He will,' said the critic, 'be buried in woollen.' The poet did not long survive the publication, for he died next year, on the 24th of July, 1758. The poetical pictures of Dyer are happy miniatures of nature, correctly drawn, beautifully coloured, and grouped with the taste of an artist. Wordsworth has praised him highly for imagination and purity of style. His versification is remarkably musical. His moral reflections arise naturally out of his subject, and are never intrusive. All bear evidence of a kind and gentle heart, and a true

poetical fancy.

Silent nymph, with curious eye,
Who, the purple evening, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man:
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet sings;
Or the tuneful nightingale

Grongar Hill.

Charms the forest with her tale;
Come, with all thy various hues,
Come, and aid thy sister muse;
Now, while Phoebus, riding high,
Gives lustre to the land and sky!
Grongar Hill invites my song,
Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells,
Sweetly musing, Quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whose silent shade,
For the modest Muses made;
So oft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rill,
Sat upon a flowery bed,

With my hand beneath my head,

While strayed my eyes o'er Towy's flood,
Over mead, and over wood,

From house to house, from hill to hill,
Till contemplation had her fill.
About his checkered sides I wind,
And leave his brooks and meads behind,
And groves, and grottoes where I lay,
And vistas shooting beams of day:
Wide and wider spreads the vale,
As circles on a smooth canal:

The mountains round, unhappy fate,
Sooner or later, of all height,

Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lessen as the others rise:
Still the prospect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads
Still it widens, widens still,

And sinks the newly risen hill.

Now I gain the mountain's brow,

;

What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapours intervene,
But the gay, the open scene.
Does the face of nature shew,
In all the hues of heaven's bow;
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.
Old castles on the cliffs arise,
Proudly towering in the skies!
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires!
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain heads!
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks!

Below me trees unnumbered rise,
Beautiful in various dyes:
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The slender fir that taper grows,
The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs.
And beyond the purple grove,
Haunt of Phyllis, queen of love!
Gaudy as the opening dawn,
Lies a long and level lawn,

On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wandering eye!
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,
His sides are clothed with waving wood,
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That cast an awful look below;
Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps:
So both a safety from the wind
On mutual dependence find.

'Tis now the raven's bleak abode;
'Tis now the apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds,

And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there_falls

Huge heaps of hoary mouldered walls.
Yet time has seen, that lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow,
Has seen this broken pile complete,
Big with the vanity of state;
But transient is the smile of fate!
A little rule a little sway,
A sunbeam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.
And see the rivers, how they run

So we mistake the future's face,
Eyed through hope's deluding glass;
As yon summits soft and fair,
Clad in colours of the air,
Which to those who journey near,
Barren, brown, and rough appear;
Still we tread the same coarse way,
The present's still a cloudy day.

O may I with myself agree,
And never covet what I see!
Content me with an humble shade,

Through woods and meads, in shade and My passions tamed, my wishes laid;

sun,

Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,
Wave succeeding wave, they go
A various journey to the deep,
Like human life, to endless sleep!
Thus is nature's vesture wrought,
To instruct our wandering thought;
Thus she dresses green and gay,
To disperse our cares away.

Ever charming, ever new,
When will the landscape tire the view!
The fountain's fall, the river's flow,
The woody valleys, warm and low;
The windy summit, wild and high,
Roughly rushing on the sky!
The pleasant seat, the ruined tower,
The naked rock, the shady bower;
The town and village, dome and farm,
Each give each a double charm,
As pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.

See, on the mountain's southern side,
Where the prospect opens wide,
Where the evening gilds the tide,
How close and small the hedges li!
What streaks of meadows cross the eye!
A step, methinks, may pass the stream,
So little distant dangers seem;

For while our wishes wildly roll,
We banish quiet from the soul:
"Tis thus the busy beat the air,
And misers gather wealth and care.
Now, even now, my joys run high,
As on the mountain turf I lie;
While the wanton zephyr sings,
And in the vale perfumes his wings;
While the waters murmur deep,
While the shepherd charms his sheep,
While the birds unbounded fly,
And with music fill the sky,

Now, even now, my joys run high.

Be full, ye courts; be great who will; Search for peace with all your skill; Open wide the lofty door,

Seek her on the marble floor:

In vain you search, she is not there;
In vain you search the domes of care!
Grass and flowers Quiet treads,
On the meads and mountain heads,
Along with Pleasure close allied,
Ever by each other's side:
And often, by the murmuring rill,
Hears the thrush, while all is still,
Within the groves of Grongar Hill.

EDWARD YOUNG.

EDWARD YOUNG (1684-1765), author of the Night Thoughts,' was born at Upham, in Hampshire, where his father-afterwards dean of Salisbury-was rector. He was educated at Winchester School, and subsequently at All Souls' College, Oxford. In 1712, he commenced public life as a courtier and poet, and he continued both characters till he was past eighty. One of his patrons was the notorious Duke of Wharton, the scorn and wonder of his days,' whom Young accompanied to Ireland in 1717. He was next tutor to Lord Burleigh, and was induced to give up this situation by Wharton, who promised to provide for him in a more suitable and ample manner. The duke also prevailed on Young, as a political supporter, to come forward as a candidate for the representation of the borough of Cirencester in parliament, and he gave him a bond for £600 to defray the expenses.

* Byron thought the lines here printed in italics the original of Campbell's far-famed lines at the opening of the Pleasures of Hope.

Young was defeated, Wharton died, and the Court of Chancery decided against the validity of the bond. The poet, being now qualified by experience, published a satire on the 'Universal Passion-the Love of Fame,' which is at once keen and powerful. When upwards of fifty, Young entered the church, wrote a panegyric on the king, and was made one of his majesty's chaplains. Swift has said that the poet was compelled to

Torture his invention

To flatter knaves, or lose his pension;

and it was found by Mr. Peter Cunningham-editor of Johnson's Lives,' 1854-that Young had a pension of £200 a year from 1725 till his death. In 1730, Young obtained from his college the living of Welwyn, in Hertfordshire, where he was destined to close his days. He was eager to obtain further preferment, but having in his poetry professed a strong love of retirement, the ministry seized upon this as a pretext for keeping him out of a bishopric. The poet made a noble alliance with the daughter of the Earl of Lichfield, widow of Colonel Lee, which lasted ten years, and proved a happier union than common report assigns to the titled marriages of Dryden and Addison. The lady had two children by her first marriage, to whom Young was warmly attached. Both died; and when the mother also followed, Young composed his 'Night Thoughts.' Sixty years had stengthened and enriched his genius, and augmented even the brilliancy of his fancy. In 1761, the poet was made clerk of the closet to the Princess-dowager of Wales, and died four years afterwards at the advanced age of eighty-one.

A life of so much action and worldly anxiety has rarely been united to so much literary industry and genius. In his youth, Young was gay and dissipated, and all his life he was an indefatigable courtier. In his poetry, he is a severe moralist and ascetic divine. That he felt the emotions he describes, must be true; but they did not permanently influence his conduct. He was not weaned from the world till age had incapacitated him for its pursuits; and the epigrammatic point and wit of his Night Thoughts,' with the gloomy views it presents of life and religion, shew the poetical artist fully as much as the humble and penitent Christian. His works are numerous; but the best are the Night Thoughts,' the Universal Passion,' and the tragedy of Revenge.' The foundation of his great poem was family misfortune, coloured and exaggerated for poetical effect.

Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?

Thy shafts flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain;
And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had filled her horn.

This rapid succession of bereavements was a poetical license; for in one of the cases there was an interval of four years, and in another of seven months. The Night Thoughts' were published from 1742 to 1744. The gay Lorenzo is overdrawn. It seems to us a mere fancy

sketch. Like the character of Childe Harold in the hands of Byron, it afforded the poet scope for dark and powerful painting, and was made the vehicle for bursts of indignant virtue, sorrow, regret, and admonition. This artificial character pervades the whole poem, and is essentially a part of its structure. But it still leaves to our admiration many noble and sublime passages, where the poet speaks as from inspiration-with the voice of one crying in the wilderness-of life, death, and immortality. The truths of religion are enforced with a commanding energy and persuasion. Epigram and repartee are then forgotten by the poet; fancy yields to feeling; and where imagery is employed, it is select, nervous, and suitable. In this sustained and impressive style, Young seldom remains long at a time; his desire to say witty and smart things, to load his picture with supernumerary horrors, and conduct his personages to their 'sulphureous or ambrosial seats,' soon converts the great poet into the painter and epigrammatist. The ingenuity of his second style is in some respects as wonderful as the first, but it is of a vastly inferior order of poetry. Southey thinks that when Johnson said (in his 'Life of Milton') that the good and evil of eternity were too ponderous for the wings of wit,' he forgot Young. The moral critic could not, however, but have condemned even witty thoughts and sparkling metaphors, which are so incongruous and misplaced. The 'Night Thoughts,' like Hudibras,' is too pointed, and too full of compressed reflection and illustration, to be read continuously with pleasure. Nothing can atone for the want of simplicity and connection in a long poem. In Young there is no plot or progressive interest. Each of the nine books is independent of the other. The general reader, therefore, seeks out favourite passages for perusal, or contents himself with a single excursion into his wide and variegated field. But the more carefully it is studied, the more extraordinary and magnificent will the entire poem appear. The fertility of fancy, the pregnancy of wit and knowledge, the striking and felicitious combinations everywhere presented, are indeed remarkable. Sound sense is united to poetical imagery; maxims of the highest practical value, and passages of great force, tenderness, and everlasting truth, are constantly rising, like sunshine, over the quaint and gloomy recesses of the poet's imagination:

The glorious fragments of a fire immortal,

With rubbish mixed, and glittering in the dust.

After all his bustling toils and ambition, how finely does Young advert to the quiet retirement of his country-life:

Blest be that hand divine, which gently laid
My heart at rest beneath this humble shed!
The world's a stately bark, on dangerous seas,
With pleasure seen, but boarded at our peril:
Here, on a single plank, thrown safe ashore,
I hear the tumult of the distant throng,

a