Of various dyes

Salute your eyes,

And cover o'er the speckled ground.

Now thickets shade the glassy fountains;
Trees overhang the purling streams;
Whisp'ring breezes brush the mountains,
Grots are fill'd with balmy steams.

But, sister, all the sweets that grace
The spring and blooming nature's face;
The chirping birds,

Nor lowing herds;
The woody hills,

Nor murm'ring rills;
The sylvan shades,

Nor flowery meads,

To me their former joys dispense,

Though all their pleasures court my sense.
But melancholy damps my mind,

I lonely walk the field,

With inward sorrow fill'd,

And sigh to every breathing wind.

I mourn our tender sister's death,
In various plaintive sounds;
While hills above, and vales beneath,
The faltering notes rebound.

Perhaps when in the pains of death,
She gasp'd her latest breath,
You saw our pensive friends around,
With tears bedew the ground.
Our loving father stand,

And press her trembling hand,

And gently cry, "My child, adieu!

We all must follow you."

Some tender friend did then perhaps arise,

And close her dying eyes:

Her stiffen'd body, cold and pale,
Was then convey'd within the gloomy vale
Of death's unhallow'd shade.

Weak mortals, Oh! how hard our fate;
How sure our death,-how short our date,

How quickly sets our day!
We all are doom'd to lay our heads
Beneath the earth in mournful shades,
To hungry worms a prey.

But, loving sister, let's prepare
With virtue's steady feet,

That we may boldly meet

The rider of the pale horse void of fear.

But why should you and I for ever mourn
Our dear relation's death? She's gone-
We 've wept enough to prove

Our grief and tender love.

Let joy succeed, and smiles appear,

And let us wipe off every tear.

Not always the cold winter lasts,

With snow and storms, and northern blasts.

The raging seas with fury tost,

Not always break and roar;

Sometimes their native anger 's lost.

And smooth hush'd waves glide softly to the shore.

Kadesmar

свино

MATHER BYLES.

THE REV. MATHER BYLES was the son of an English gentleman, and descended on the maternal side from the Rev. Richard Mather of Dorchester, and the Rev. John Cotton of Boston. He was born in Boston on the 15th day of March 1706 old style. He was educated at Harvard University, and received a Bachelor's degree in 1725. He made choice of theology for his profession, and was ordained over the church in Hollis street, Boston, in 1732. Possessed of sound talents, aided by a wide course of general reading, besides his theo logical studies, he soon became very favorably known as a preacher, and a man of literature, not only at home, but in Europe. He was a person of wit and sociality, and the agree ableness of his conversation gained him a ready welcome

among society in Boston; notwithstanding the rigorism and staidness of ancient puritanism had maintained itself in a great measure among the members of the clergy up to that period. The whim and facetiousness of Byles, his turn for raillery, sarcasm, and repartee, displayed on almost every occasion, and often with a reckless unconcern as to the consequences, might have seemed unnatural adjuncts of the priestly character, to a people accustomed to an almost overstrained sobriety of demeanor in persons of that rank. A rhyming catalogue of the principal church dignitaries of Boston and the neighborhood, which we have met with in manuscript, thus introduces him.

There's punning Byles, provokes our smiles,
A man of stately parts.

He visits folks to crack his jokes,
Which never mend their hearts.

With strutting gait, and wig so great,
He walks along the streets;

And throws out wit, or what's like it,
To every one he meets.

It does not appear, however, that the colloquial vagaries of the facetious parson at all diminished his reputation as a sound divine, or in the least injured the gravity or effect of his pulpit discourses.

Byles wrote verses and essays in the journals, and on incidental occasions, for his own amusement and the gratification of his friends, but never attempted any work of magnitude, or exercised his pen on any subject with a view to literary reputation. He became known, however, to many persons of eminence and talents in England, who corresponded with him and sent him their works. Pope, Landsdowne, and Watts, are mentioned among these. His professional attainments were sufficiently prized by the king's college at Aberdeen, to obtain for him the degree of Doctor of Divinity from that seminary.

The breaking out of the revolutionary troubles, involved him in difficulties with the civil authority, which resulted in

separating him from his parish, and finally debarring him from the exercise of his profession. From the beginning of the contest, he appears to have inclined to the side of the British. He remained in Boston during the occupation of that town by the enemy, and associated familiarly with the British officers, a course of conduct which drew upon him the dislike of the people, among whom party animosities were sufficiently violent to sunder the most intimate ties. Byles was denounced as a person disaffected to the cause of the revolution, and dismissed from his parish. In June 1777 he underwent a public trial before a special court, when charges of hostility to the country were exhibited against him. He was pronounced guilty, and sentenced to be imprisoned on board a guard ship, and in forty days to be sent with his family to England. The board of war took his case into consideration, and remitted most of the sentence. He was confined to his own house, and kept under a guard for some time. After being set at liberty, he continued to lead a private life, incapacitated by the imputation he lay under, of being a tory, for the exercise of any pastoral charge. In 1783, he was attacked by a paralytic disorder, under which he labored some years. He died July 5th, 1788 in his eightysecond year.

Byles's reputation among the people of his own town and neighborhood, has been mostly owing to his performances, as a wit. His pleasantries were current in every social circle, and obtained him such a notoriety in that character, as to beget a practice of ascribing every bon mot in vogue to the Doctor, in the manner that jokes are fathered upon Joe Miller. Such of his poems as we have been able to collect (for the few he has written are very scarce) show him to have been possessed of a good degree of poetical talent. Evidences of a rich fancy are perceptible in them, and the versification is polished and spirited.

THE CONFLAGRATION.

In some calm midnight, when no whispering breeze
Waves the tall woods, or curls the undimpled seas,

Lull'd on their oozy beds, the rivers seem
Softly to murmur in a pleasing dream ;
The shaded fields confess a still repose,

And on each hand the dewy mountains drowse:
Meantime the moon, fair empress of the night!
In solemn silence sheds her silver light,

While twinkling stars their glimmering beauties shew, And wink perpetual o'er the heavenly blue;

Sleep, nodding, consecrates the deep serene,

And spreads her brooding wings o'er all the dusky scene;
Through the fine ether moves no single breath ;
But all is hushed as in the arms of death.

At once, great God! thy dire command is given,
That the last tempest shake the frame of heaven.
Straight thickening clouds in gloomy volumes rise,
Gather on heaps, and blacken in the skies;
Sublime through heaven redoubling thunders roll;
And gleaming lightnings flash from pole to pole.
Old ocean with presaging horror roars,

And rousing earthquakes rumble round the shores;
Ten thousand terrors o'er the globe are hurl'd,
And general dread alarms a guilty world.

But Oh! what glory breaks the scattering glooms 2
Lo! down the opening skies, he comes! he comes!
The Judge descending flames along the air;
And shouting myriads pour around his car:
Each ravish'd seraph labors in his praise,
And saints, alternate, catch the immortal lays:
Here in melodious strains blest voices sing,
Here warbling tubes, and here the vocal string,
Here from sweet trumpets silver accents rise,
And the shrill clangor echoes round the skies.
And now, O earth! thy final doom attend,
In awful silence meet thy fiery end.
Lo! rising radiant from his burning throne,
The Godhead, thundering, calls the ruins on.
"Curst earth! polluted with the prophets' blood,
Thou, the vile murderer of the Son of God,
Full ripe for vengeance, vengeance be thy due,
Perish in flames, refine, and rise anew! "
Thus as he speaks, all nature owns the God,
Quiver the plains, the lofty mountains nod.
The hollow winding caverns echo round,
And earth, and sea, and air, and heaven resound.
Now rattling on, tremendous thunder rolls,
And loudly crashing, shakes the distant poles;