Or o'er your stretching heaths, by fancy led; Where Jonson' sat in Drummond's classic shade; Or crop, from Tiviotdale, each lyric flower, And mourn, on Yarrow's banks, where Willy's laid! Meantime, ye powers that on the plains which bore sent friend! COLLEY CIBBER. BORN 1071.-DIED 1757. SONG. THE BLIND BOY. O SAY! what is that thing call'd light, What are the blessings of the sight? Ben Jonson paid a visit on foot, in 1619, to the Scotch poet Drummond, at his seat of Hawthornden, within four miles of Edinburgh. 2 Barrow, it seems, was at the Edinburgh university, which is in the county of Lothian. You talk of wond'rous things you see, I feel him warm, but how can he My day or night myself I make, With heavy sighs I often hear Then let not what I cannot have EDWARD MOORE. EDWARD MOORE was the son of a dissenting clergyman at Abingdon, in Berkshire, and was bred to the business of a linen-draper, which he pursued, however, both in London and Ireland, with so little success, that he embraced the literary life (according to his own account) more from necessity than inclination. His fables (in 1744) first brought him into potice. The Honourable Mr. Pelham was one of his earliest friends; and his trial of Selim gained him the friendship of Lord Lyttleton. Of three works which he produced for the stage, his two comedies, the Foundling and Gil Blas, were unsuccessful; but he was fully indemnified by the profits and reputation of the Gamester. Moore himself acknowledges that he owed to Garrick many popular passages of his drama; and Davies, the biographer of Garrick, ascribes to the great actor the whole scene between Lewson and Stukely, in the fourth act; but Davies's authority is not oracular. About the year 1751 Lord Lyttleton, in concert with Dodsley, projected the paper of the World, of which it was agreed that Moore should enjoy the profits, whether the numbers were written by himself or by volunteer contributors, Lyttleton's interest soon enlisted many accomplished coadjutors, such as Cambridge, Jennyns, Lord Chesterfield, and H. Walpole. Moore himself wrote sixtyone of the papers. In the last number of the World the conclusion is made to depend on a fictitious incident which had occasioned the death of the author. When the papers were collected into volumes, Moore, who superintended the publication, realized this jocular fiction by his own death, whilst the last number was in the press. TAKE wing, my Muse! from shore to shore Fly, and that happy place explore Where Virtue deigns to dwell; If yet she treads on British ground, Not there, where wine and frantic mirth In Pleasure's thoughtless train: Her social heart alike disowns The race, who, shunning crowds and thrones, In shades sequester'd doze; Whose sloth no generous care can wake, Who rot, like weeds on Lethe's lake, In senseless, vile repose. With these she shuns the factious tribe, And at corruption lour; Waiting till Discord Havoc cries, Ye wits, who boast from ancient times Is it with you she rests? No. Int'rest, slander are your views, There was a time, I heard her say, To Love and her unknown. From these th' indignant goddess flies, Long through the sky's wide pathless way There she beholds the gentle Mole There through the windings of the grove And strews her sweets around. I hear her bid the daughters fair |