No fictions here to willing fraud invite, Led by the marvellous, absurd delight; No golden ass, no tale Arabians feign; Nor flitting forms of Naso's magic strain, Deucalion's progeny of native stone, Or armies from Cadmean harvests grown; With many a wanton and fantastic dream, The laurel, mulberry, and bashful stream; Arachne shrunk beneath Tritonia's rage; Tithonus chang'd and garrulous with age. Not such mutations deck the chaster song, Adorn'd with nature, and with truth made strong; No debt to fable, or to fancy due,

And only wondrous facts reveal'd to view.

Though numberless these insect tribes of air, Though numberless each tribe and species fair, Who wing the noon, and brighten in the blaze, Innumerous as the sands which bend the seas; These have their organs, arts, and arms, and tools, And functions exercised by various rules;

The saw, ax, auger, trowel, piercer, drill;
The neat alembic, and nectareous still:
Their peaceful hours the loom and distaff know;
But war, the force and fury of the foe,
The spear, the falchion, and the martial mail,
And artful stratagem, where strength may fail.
Each tribe peculiar occupations claim,
Peculiar beauties deck each varying frame;
Attire and food peculiar are assign'd,

And means to propagate their varying kind.

Each, as reflecting on their primal state,
Or fraught with scientific craft innate,
With conscious skill their oval embryon shed,
Where native first their infancy was fed:
Or on some vegetating foliage glu'd;

Or o'er the flood they spread their future brood;
A slender cord the floating jelly binds,
Eludes the wave, and mocks the warring winds;
O'er this their sperm in spiral order lies,
And pearls in living ranges greet our eyes.
In firmest oak they scoop a spacious tomb,
And lay their embryo in the spurious womb:

Some flow'rs, some fruit, some gems, or blossoms choose,

And confident their darling hopes infuse;
While some their in ranker carnage lay,

eggs

And to their young adapt the future prey.

Meantime the Sun his fost'ring warmth bequeaths,
Each tepid air its motive influence breathes,
Mysterious springs the wav'ring life supply,
And quick'ning births unconscious motion try;
Mature, their slender fences they disown,
And break at once into a world unknown.
All by their dam's prophetic care receive
Whate'er peculiar indigence can crave:
Profuse at hand the plenteous table's spread,
And various appetites are aptly fed.

Nor less each organ suits each place of birth,
Finn'd in the flood, or reptile o'er the earth;
Each organ, apt to each precarious state,
As for eternity design'd complete.

Thus nurs'd, these inconsiderate wretches grow,
Take all as due, still thoughtless that they owe.
When lo! strange tidings prompt each secret breast,
And whisper wonders not to be express'd;
Each owns his error in his later cares,

And for the new unthought-of world prepares:
New views, new tastes, new judgments are acquir'd,
And all now loathe delights so late admir'd.
In confidence the solemn shroud they weave,
Or build the tomb, or dig the deadly grave;
Intrepid there resign their parting breath,
And give their former shape the spoils of death;
But reconceiv'd as in a second womb,
Through metamorphoses, new forms assume:
On death their true exalted life depends,
Commencing there, where seemingly it ends.
The fulness now of circling time arrives;
Each from the long, the mortal sleep revives;
The tombs pour forth their renovated dead,
And, like a dream, all former scenes are fled.
But O! what terms expressive may relate

The change, the splendour of their new-form'd state?
Their texture nor compos'd of filmy skin,
Of cumbrous flesh without, or bone within,
But something than corporeal more refin'd,
And agile as their blithe informing mind.
In ev'ry eye ten thousand brilliants blaze,
And living pearls the vast horizon gaze;

Gemm'd o'er their heads the mines of India gleam,

And Heav'n's own wardrobe has array'd their frame;

Each spangled back bright sprinkling specks adorn,
Each plume imbibes the rosy tinctur'd morn;
Spread on each wing the florid seasons glow,
Shaded and verg'd with the celestial bow,
Where colours blend an ever varying dye,
And wanton in their gay exchanges vie.

JOHN SCOTT.

BORN 1730.-DIED 1783.

THIS worthy and poetical quaker was the son of a draper, in London, and was born in the borough of Southwark. His father retired to Amwell, in Hertfordshire, when our poet was only ten years old; and this removal, together with the circumstance of his never having been inoculated for the small-pox, proved an unfortunate impediment to his education. He was put to a day-school, in the neighbouring town of Ware, where not much instruction was to be had; and from that little he was called away, upon the first alarm of infection, Such indeed was his constant apprehension of the disease, that he lived for twenty years within twenty miles of London without visiting it more than once. About the age

of seventeen, however, he betook himself to reading. His family, from their cast of opinions and society,

were not likely to abound either in books or conversation relating to literature; but he happened to form an acquaintance and friendship with a neighbour of the name of Frogley, a master bricklayer, who, though an uneducated man, was an admirer of poetry, and by his intercourse with this friend he strengthened his literary propensity. His first poetical essays were transmitted to the Gentleman's Magazine. In his thirtieth year he published four elegies, which were favourably received. His poems, entitled "The Garden," and "Amwell," and his volume of collected poetical pieces, appeared after considerable intervals; and his "Critical Essays on the English Poets" were published in the last year of his life. These, with his "Remarks on the Poems of Rowley," are all that can be called his literary productions. He published also two political tracts, in answer to Dr. Johnson's " Patriot," and "False Alarm." His critical essays contain some judicious remarks on Denham and Dyer; but his verbal strictures on Collins and Goldsmith discover a miserable insensibility to the soul of those poets. His own verses are chiefly interesting, where they breathe the pacific principles of the quaker; while his personal character engages respect, from exhibiting a public spirit and liberal taste, beyond the habits of his brethren. He was well informed in the laws of his country; and, though prevented by his tenets from becoming a magistrate, he made himself useful to the inhabitants of Amwell, by his offices of arbitration,