Of inexperienc'd youth, whose sweets among
I've stray'd so oft, and trod thy broider'd vales
E'er chanticleer, shrill herald of the morn,

Had hail'd the blushing east with neck outstretch'd,
And crest high flaming, or the soaring lark,
Borne on the buoyant bosom of the air,
High quiv'ring caroll'd loud her matin song;
E'er yet the sun had shot his infant beam
To chase the vapour from the mountain's brow;
While yet the dew-drop glitter'd on the thorn,
And silver'd o'er the mead, untouch'd, as yet,
By ruddy Phoebus, or the heavy tread
Of new-wak'd villager, or daintier step
Of milk-maid lightly tripping o'er the path
Of yonder church-yard, where she stopp'd awhile
To ask the sexton, busy at his work,

Whose was the new-made grave? and then began
In rustic mood, to moralize awhile

On what the parson said, that all must die;
And ruminate how oft the bell had toll'd
Since she remember'd. Oh! it joy'd my soul
To see the big tear start into her eye,
And bathe the honest glow upon her cheek,
To think how death had thinn'd the village tribe.
Perhaps for me, (sad meed of sympathy),

She since has wasted many an idle tear,

Who oft have met her near my custom'd oak,
And stayed her speed, while from the briar'd copse
The motley thrush chided the gurgling rill
That marr'd her melody; and well I ween
The aged pilgrim who, with look devout,
And eye uplifted, greeting all that past,

Sat at my gate, has missed his custom'd meal :
Perchance he has not found an ear so prompt
To listen to his long-drawn tale of woe -
An eye so apt to weep when it is done.
Unpractis'd he to whine his woes aloud,
(Grief's clam'rous harbinger), and if perchance,
Nor the big care that sat upon his brow,

Or sorrow's trace, that mark'd his furrow'd cheek,
Could wrench from avarice the niggard boon,
He shook his silver'd beard, and murmur'd not;
Or if he murmur'd, 'twas but with a smile,
A smile that, whilst it chid, forgave the wrong.*

It would be frivolous, if not invidious to multiply specimens of his juvenile compositions, which can only interest as they mark the gradual developement of talents, and are merely useful as they check the rigour with which literary censors sometimes scan the pretensions of youthful writers. There are few authors who have not become sensible to the aukwardness of their first attempts, or who have not to lament the time consumed in unprofitable

* It will be seen that this line was afterwards transferred to his tragedy.

experiments to elicit latent genius; and often has humiliation been the vigil of triumph, and self-reproach the earnest of excellence.

At this period it is probable that Mr. James Tobin might have challenged precedence of his brother in poetry. Before he quitted Oxford he had proposed to publish, in conjunction with John, a small volume of poems; but criticism appears to have spoilt him for an author: he had at least learned to judge his own productions with rigour; and the scheme was finally relinquished. During an excursion which he afterwards made to the continent, he was vainly stimulated to literary enterprize by his adventurous brother, who in the meantime had finished a satire of 500 lines, which was not destined to reach the press.

*

* Many of these pieces afterwards appeared in the Anthology which was published in 1800.

The following letter, addressed to Mr. James Tobin, claims insertion, as it contains the political tenets to which the poet adhered through life. The mildness and liberality of his character were ill suited to the turbulence of faction, or the exclusiveness of party; and he was therefore usually left alone to maintain the single-minded independence of his principles.

66

London, December, 1792. "The most current report here is, that Mr. Pitt is privately negociating with the French, to whose cause, during the inglorious crusade of kings and emperors, I wished well; but now that they are proceeding to invade the peace of countries which have avowed no hostility to theirs, I must freely own I feel the same sort of disgust at their conduct, as that which possessed my mind on seeing their own country invaded by a league of despots. Admitting the goodness of their motive, that of giving

universal liberty to mankind, they can have no right, either natural or political, to inculcate any doctrines by force. The argumentum baculinum never produced conviction; and the wars which deluge kingdoms with blood to establish an opinion, never yet gained a single proselyte: so far from it, that I firmly think nothing can root a persuasion of the mind so strongly as persecution. It is for this reason I lament the present growing system of mental tyranny in my own country; that horrible inquisition over the mind of man- that controul upon his most noble, his rational faculties that embargo upon words and phrases which is lately established, and which resembles the argument of Peter in the Tale of a Tub, who, to convince his brothers that a peck loaf is a shoulder of mutton, says, I shall use but one plain argument, which is, "By G! if it is not as good mutton as any in Leadenhall market!"

-Now, though such an argument, naturally