MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTION ΤΟ WILLIAM NORTHCOT. HIC sepultus est GULIELMUS NORTHCOT, Unicus, unicè dilectus, Qui floris ritu succisus est semihiantis, Care, vale! Sed non æternum, care, valeto! TRANSLATION. FAREWELL!" But not for ever," Hope replies, weep again. A RIDDLE. I AM just two and two, I am warm, I am cold, I am often sold dear, good for nothing when bought; And yielded with pleasure when taken by force. FROM THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, Vol. LXXVI. p. 1224. A RIDDLE by Cowper Made me swear like a trooper ; But my anger, alas! was in vain Of beauty's soft Kiss, ; I now long for such riddles again. J. T. IN SEDITIONEM HORRENDAM, CORRUPTELIS GALLICIS UT FERTUR, LONDINI NUPER EXORTAM. PERFIDA, crudelis, victa et lymphata furore, TRANSLATION. FALSE, cruel, disappointed, stung to the heart, Bids the low street and lofty palace blaze. COWPER had sinn'd with some excuse, Of changing ewes for wethers1; But, male for female is a trope, When he translated Homer. I have heard about my wether mutton from various quarters. It was a blunder hardly pardonable in a man who has lived amid fields and meadows, grazed by sheep, almost these thirty years. I have accordingly satirized myself in two stanzas which I composed last night, while I lay awake, tormented with pain, and well dosed with laudanum. If you find them not very brilliant, therefore, you will know how to account for it.Letter to Joseph Hill, April 15, 1792. STANZAS SUBJOINED TO THE YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY OF THE PARISH OF ALL-SAINTS, NORTHAMPTON1, ANNO DOMINI 1787. Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas, Regumque turres. HORACE. Pale Death with equal foot strikes wide the door WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run All these, life's rambling journey done, Was man (frail always) made more frail Did famine or did plague prevail, No; these were vigorous as their sires, Like crowded forest-trees we stand, Green as the bay tree, ever green, The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen, Read, ye that run, the aweful truth A worm is in the bud of youth, 1 Composed for John Cox, parish clerk of Northampton. No present health can health insure No medicine, though it oft can cure, And oh! that humble as my lot, These truths, though known, too much forgot, So prays your Clerk with all his heart, COULD I, from Heaven inspired, as sure presage How each would trembling wait the mournful sheet On which the press might stamp him next to die ; And, reading here his sentence, how replete With anxious meaning, heavenward turn his eye! Time then would seem more precious than the joys And Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink Of this world's hazardous and headlong shore, Forced to a pause, would feel it good to think, Told that his setting sun must rise no more. Ah self-deceived! Could I prophetic say Who next is fated, and who next to fall, The rest might then seem privileged to play; But, naming none, the Voice now speaks to all. Observe the dappled foresters, how light They bound and airy o'er the sunny glade; One falls-the rest, wide scatter'd with affright, Vanish at once into the darkest shade. Had we their wisdom, should we, often warn'd, Sad waste! for which no after-thrift atones! Learn then, ye living! by the mouths be taught That, soon or late, death also is your lot, ON A SIMILAR OCCASION, FOR THE YEAR 1789. -Placidaque ibi demum morte quievit. VIRG. There calm at length he breathed his soul away. |