Thy martial glory, crowned with praise,

Still shone with undiminished blaze?
Thy towering spirit now is broke,
Thy neck is bended to the yoke.
What foreign arms could never quell,
By civil rage and rancor fell.

The rural pipe and merry lay

No more shall cheer the happy day:
No social scenes of gay delight
Beguile the dreary winter night:
No strains but those of sorrow flow,

And naught be heard but sounds of woe,
While the pale phantoms of the slain
Glide nightly o'er the silent plain.

Oh baneful cause, oh fatal morn,
Accursed to ages yet unborn!
The sons against their fathers stood,
The parent shed his children's blood.
Yet, when the rage of battle ceased,
The victor's soul was not appeased:
The naked and forlorn must feel
Devouring flames and murdering steel!

The pious mother, doomed to death,
Forsaken wanders o'er the heath,
The bleak wind whistles round her head,
Her helpless orphans cry for bread;
Bereft of shelter, food, and friend,
She views the shades of night descend,
And, stretched beneath the inclement skies,
Weeps o'er her tender babes, and dies.

While the warm blood bedews my veins,
And unimpaired remembrance reigns,
Resentment of my country's fate
Within my filial breast shall beat;
And, spite of her insulting foe,
My sympathizing verse shall flow:
Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn
Thy banished peace, thy laurels toru!"

No torrents stain thy limpid source;
No rocks impede thy dimpling course,
That sweetly warbles o'er its bed,
With white, round, polished pebbles spread;
While, lightly poised, the scaly brood
In myriads cleave thy crystal flood;
The springing trout in speckled pride;
The salmon, monarch of the tide;
The ruthless pike, intent on war;
The silver eel, and mottled par.
Devolving from thy parent lake,

A charming maze thy waters make,
By bowers of birch, and groves of pine,
And hedges flowered with eglantine.
Still on thy banks so gayly green,
May numerous herds and flocks be seen,
And lasses chanting o'er the pail,
And shepherds piping in the dale;
And ancient Faith that knows no guile,
And Industry embrowned with toil;
And hearts resolved, and hands prepared,
The blessings they enjoy to guard!

John Home.

Home (1722-1808), author of "Douglas," was a native of Leith, Scotland, where his father was town-clerk. He entered the Church, and succeeded Blair, author of "The Grave," as minister of Athelstaneford. Previous to this he had had some military experience, and taken up arms as a volunteer against the Chevalier. After the defeat at Falkirk, he was imprisoned, but effected his escape by cutting his blanket into shreds, and letting himself down on the ground. Great indignation was raised against him by the Scotch Presbyterians because of his writing a play, and he was obliged to resign his living. Lord Bute rewarded him with a sinecure office in 1760, and he received a pension of £300 per annum. He wrote other tragedies, which soon passed into oblivion; but with an income of about £600 per annum, and with an easy, cheerful disposition, and distinguished friendships, he lived happily to the age of eighty-six.

ODE TO LEVEN-WATER.

On Leven's banks, while free to rove,
And tune the rural pipe to love;
I envied not the happiest swain
That ever trod the Arcadian plain.

Pure stream! in whose transparent wave My youthful limbs I wont to lave;

THE SOLDIER-HERMIT.

FROM "DOUGLAS," A TRAGEDY.

Beneath a mountain's brow, the most remote
And inaccessible by shepherds trod,

In a deep cave, dug by no mortal hand,
A hermit lived; a melancholy man,

Who was the wonder of our wandering swains.
Austere and lonely, cruel to himself,

Did they report him; the cold earth his bed, Water his drink, his food the shepherd's alms.

I went to see him, and my heart was touched
With reverence and with pity. Mild he spake;
And, entering on discourse, such stories told,
As made me oft revisit his sad cell;
For he had been a soldier in his youth,
And fought in famous battles, when the peers
Of Europe, by the old Godfredo led
Against the usurping infidel, displayed
The blessed cross, and won the Holy Land.
Pleased with my admiration and the fire

His speech struck from me, the old man would shake
His years away, and act his young encounters.
Then, having showed his wounds, he'd sit him down,
And all the live-long day discourse of war.
To help my fancy, in the smooth green turf
He cut the figures of the marshalled hosts;
Described the motions and explained the use
Of the deep column and the lengthened line,
The square, the crescent, and the phalanx firm;
For all that Saracen or Christian knew
Of war's vast art, was to this hermit known.
Why this brave soldier in a desert hid
Those qualities that should have graced a camp,
At last I also learned. Unhappy man!
Returning homeward by Messina's port,
Loaded with wealth and honors, bravely won,
A rude and boisterous captain of the sea
Fastened a quarrel on him. Fierce they fought:
The stranger fell; and, with his dying breath,
Declared his name and lineage. "Mighty heaven!"
The soldier cried-"My brother! oh, my brother!"
They exchanged forgiveness.

And happy, in my mind, was he that died;
For many deaths has the survivor suffered.

In the wild desert, on a rock, he sits,

Or on some nameless stream's untrodden banks,
And ruminates all day his dreadful fate:
At times, alas! not in his perfect mind,
Holds dialogues with his loved brother's ghost;
And oft, each night, forsakes his sullen couch,
To make sad orisons for him he slew.

sumed superiority of manner" which Aikin refers to as characteristic of Mason's external demeanor, but which seems to have influenced his interior nature so far as to have deadened all spontaneousness in his poetical utterances. It should be remarked that the last four lines of the "Epitaph on Mrs. Mason" were supplied by Gray.

EPITAPH ON MRS. MASON, IN THE CATHE-
DRAL OF BRISTOL.

Take, holy earth, all that my soul holds dear;
Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave!
To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care
Her faded form; she bowed to taste the wave,
And died. Does youth, does beauty, read the line?
Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm?
Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine!

Even from the grave thou shalt have power to

charm.

Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee;

Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move; And if so fair, from vanity as free,

As firm in friendship, and as fond in love,Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die ('Twas even to thee), yet, the dread path once trod,

Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,

And bids the pure in heart behold their God.

Miss Jane Elliot.

Two Scottish national ballads, bearing the name of "The Flowers of the Forest," both the composition of ladies, are among the curiosities of literature. The first of the two versions, bewailing the losses sustained at Flodden, was written by Miss Jane Elliot (1727-1805), daughter of Sir Gilbert Elliot, of Minto.

The second song, which appears to be on the same subject, but was in reality suggested (according to Chambers) by the bankruptcy of certain gentlemen in Selkirkshire, is by Alicia Rutherford, of Fairnalie, who was afterward married to Mr. Patrick Cockburn, advocate, and died in Edinburgh in 1794. She foresaw and proclaimed the promise of Walter Scott.

William Mason.

Mason, a native of Yorkshire (1725-1797), was the friend and literary executor of Gray, whose acquaintance he made at Cambridge. He became chaplain to the king, and wrote plays and odes after Greek models; but they lack vitality. In 1781 he published a didactic poem, "The English Garden," in blank verse, a stiff and much padded production. In one genuine little poem, an epitaph on his wife, he seems to be betrayed into true feeling, and to escape from that "stateliness and as

With flowers of the fairest, most pleasant and gay;
Sae bonny was their blooming,
Their scent the air perfuming!

But now they are withered and weeded away.

I've seen the morning

With gold the hills adorning,

And loud tempest storming before the mid-day;
I've seen Tweed's silver streams,
Shining in the sunny beams,

Grow drumly and dark as he rowed on his way.

O fickle Fortune!

Why this cruel sporting?

Oh, why still perplex us, poor sons of a day?
Nae mair your smiles can cheer me,
Nae mair your frowns can fear me;
For the Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.

Oliver Goldsmith.

The son of a humble Irish curate, Goldsmith (17281774) was born in Longford County, Ireland. He received his education at the universities of Dublin and Edinburgh, and passed a winter at Leyden, where he lived chiefly by teaching English. After spending nearly all the money he had just borrowed from a friend in buying a parcel of rare tulip-roots for his uncle Contarine, who had befriended him, he left Leyden, "with a guinea in his pocket, but one shirt to his back, and a flute in his hand," to make the grand tour of Europe, and seek for his medical degree. He travelled through Flanders, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy-often trudging all day on foot, and at night playing merry tunes on his flute before a peasant's cottage, in the hope of a supper and a bed; for a time acting as companion to the rich young nephew of a pawnbroker; and in Italy winning a shelter, a little money, and a plate of macaroni by disputing in the universities.

In 1756 he arrived poor in London, and made a desperate attempt to gain a footing in the medical profession. After working for awhile with mortar and pestle as an apothecary's drudge, he commenced practice among the poor of Southwark. Here we catch two glimpses of his little figure-once, in faded green and gold, talking to an old school-fellow in the street; and again, in rusty black velvet, with second-hand cane and wig, trying to conceal a great patch in his coat by pressing his old hat fashionably against his side.

In 1759 he published his "Present State of Literature in Europe:" he also began a series of light essays, entitled "The Bee;" but the "Bee" did not make honey for him; it expired in eight weeks. At Newberry's bookstore he became acquainted with Bishop Percy, who introduced him to Dr. Johnson, May 31st, 1761. About that time Goldsmith lodged with a Mrs. Fleming. It was in her lodgings that, being pressed either to pay his bill or to marry his landlady, he applied for help to

Dr. Johnson. On that occasion the MS. of "The Vicar of Wakefield" was produced. Johnson was so much struck with it that he negotiated its sale, and obtained 200 for the work, whereby Goldsmith was extricated from his difficulties, and from Mrs. Fleming. In 1765

The Traveller" was published. Its success was immediate, and its author was at once recognized as a man of mark in all literary circles. The following year "The Vicar of Wakefield," which Newberry had not yet ventured to publish, appeared, and was welcomed as the most delightful of domestic novels. "The Good-natured Man," a comedy, was brought out at Covent Garden in 1768; and in 1773 Goldsmith's great dramatic success was made in the production of "She Stoops to Conquer," an admirable and well-constructed play, which still keeps possession of the stage. The year 1770 saw the publication of the most famous poem from his pen, "The Deserted Village."

In maturer age, as in youth, Goldsmith was careless, improvident, and unable to keep the money he earned. He hung loosely on society, without wife or domestic tie. He received £850 for "The History of Animated Nature," largely a translation from Buffon. But debt had him in its talons. Still he would give away to any needy person the last penny he had in his own pocket. His chambers were the resort of a congregation of poor people whom he habitually relieved. At last Goldsmith grew to be abrupt, odd, and abstracted. The alarm of his friends was excited. At that date a literary association used to meet at St. James's Coffee-house. Garrick, Burke, Cumberland, Reynolds, and others were regular attendants. A night of meeting having arrived, and Goldsmith being late, as usual, the members amused themselves by writing epitaphs on him as "the late Dr. Goldsmith." When he came, these effusions were read to him. On returning home, he commenced his poem entitled "Retaliation." It was never completed, for fever seized him at his work. A doctor being called in, asked, "Is your mind at ease ?" "No, it is not," were the last words Goldsmith uttered. He was seized with convulsions on the morning of April 4th, 1774, and died, at the age of forty-six. He was £2000 in debt. "Was ever poet so trusted before!" exclaimed Johnson.

Goldsmith is described by a lady who knew him-the daughter of his friend, Lord Clare-as one "who was a trong republican in principle, and who would have been a very dangerous writer if he had lived to the times of the French Revolution." His "Deserted Village" shows his profound sensibilities in behalf of the poor and unfriended. The verse of this exquisite poem is the conventionally stiff heroic couplet, but it assumes an ease and grace in Goldsmith's hands which relieves it of all artificial monotony.

The monument to Goldsmith in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, bears an inscription in Latin from the pen of Dr. Johnson, which says: "He left scarcely any style of writing untouched, and touched nothing that he did not adorn; of all the passions (whether smiles were to be moved or tears) a powerful yet gentle master; in genius sublime, vivid, versatile; in style elevated, clear, elegant. The love of companions, the fidelity of friends, and the veneration of readers, have by this monument honored his memory."

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.
Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain!
Where health and plenty cheered the laboring
swain;

Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting Summer's lingering blooms delayed!
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and case,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene!
How often have I paused on every charm-
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church that topped the neighboring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made!
How often have I blessed the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labor free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree;
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old surveyed;
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went
round;

And still, as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired.
The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
By holding out to tire each other down;
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter tittered round the place;
The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove :
These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like
these,

With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence

shed,

These were thy charms-but all these charms are fled.

Sweet, smiling village, loveliest of the lawn!
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amid thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green:
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain.
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But, choked with sedges, works its weary way;
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,

The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amid thy desert-walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.

Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,

And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall; And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand, Far, far away thy children leave the land.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay. Princes and lords may flourish or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made: But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied.

A time there was, e'er England's griefs began, When every rood of ground maintained its man; For him light labor spread her wholesome store, Just gave what life required, but gave no more; His best companions innocence and health, And his best riches ignorance of wealth.

But times are altered: trade's unfeeling train
Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain;
Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose,
Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose,
And every want to luxury allied,

And every pang that folly pays to pride.
Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,
Those calm desires that asked but little room,
Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful
scene,

Lived in each look, and brightened all the green;
These, far departing, seek a kinder shore,
And rural mirth and manners are no more.

Sweet Auburn! parent of the blissful hour!
Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power.
Here, as I take my solitary rounds,
Amid thy tangling walks and ruined grounds,
And, many a year elapsed, return to view
Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew,
Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.
In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my griefs--and God has given my share-
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amid these humble bowers to lay me down;
To husband out life's taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wasting, by repose;
I still had hopes (for pride attends us still)
Amid the swains to show my book-learned skill;
Around my fire an evening group to draw,
And tell of all I felt, and all I saw :

And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew,
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return-and die at home at last.

O blest retirement! friend to life's decline!
Retreats from care that never must be mine!

How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these,
A youth of labor with an age of ease!

Who quits a world where strong temptations try,
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly!
For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep;
No surly porter stands, in guilty state,
To spurn imploring famine from the gate:
But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past.
Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's
close,

Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;
There, as I passed with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came softened from below:
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung,
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young,
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school,
The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering
wind,

And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And filled each pause the nightingale had made.
But now the sounds of population fail,
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,
No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread,
But all the blooming flush of life is fled:
All but you widowed, solitary thing,

That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron, forced in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn,
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn:
She only left of all the harmless train,
The sad historian of the pensive plain.

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled,
And still where many a garden-flower grows wild,
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,

Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place;

Unskilful he to fawn or seek for power
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.