So turning to his horse, he said: 'I am in haste to dine; 'Twas for your pleasure you came here, You shall go back for mine.' Ah, luckless speech, and bootless boast! Away went Gilpin, and away Went Gilpin's hat and wig: She pulled out half-a-crown ; And thus unto the youth she said, That drove them to the Bell: 'This shall be yours, when you bring back My husband safe and well.' The youth did ride, and soon did meet But, not performing what he meant, Away went Gilpin, and away Went post-boy at his heels, The post-boy's horse right glad to miss Six gentlemen upon the road With post-boy scampering in the rear, 'Stop thief! stop thief! a highwayman !' Not one of them was mute; And all and each that passed that way And now the turnpike gates again Flew open in short space; The tollmen thinking as before, And so he did, and won it too, Nor stopped till where he had got up Now let us sing, long live the king, WILLIAM HAYLEY. WILLIAM HAYLEY (1745-1820), the biographer of Cowper, wrote various poetical works which enjoyed great popularity in their day. His principal work is The Triumphs of Temper, a poem in six cantos (1781). He wrote also an Essay on History, addressed to Gibbon (1780), an Essay on Epic Poetry (1782), an Essay on Old Maids (1785), Essays on Sculpture, addressed to Flaxman (1800), The Triumph of Music (1804), &c. He wrote also various dramatic pieces and a Life of Milton (1796). A gentleman by education and fortune, and fond of literary communication, Hayley enjoyed the acquaintance of most of the eminent men of his times. His over-strained sensibility and romantic tastes exposed him to ridicule, yet he was an amiable and accomplished man. It was through his personal application to Pitt that Cowper received his pension. He had— what appears to have been to him a sort of melancholy pride and satisfaction—the task of writing epitaphs for most of his friends, including Mrs Unwin and Cowper. His life of Cowper appeared in 1803, and three years afterwards it was enlarged by a supplement. Hayley prepared memoirs of his own life, which he disposed of to a publisher on condition of his receiving an annuity for the remainder of his life. This annuity he enjoyed for twelve years. The memoirs appeared in two fine quarto volumes, but they failed to attract attention. Hayley had outlived his popularity, and his smooth but often unmeaning lines had vanished like chaff before the vigorous and natural outpourings of the modern muse. As a specimen of this once much-praised poet, we subjoin from his Essay on Epic Poetry some lines on the death of his mother, which had the merit of delighting Gibbon, and with which Southey has remarked Cowper would sympathise deeply : Tribute to a Mother, on her Death. For me who feel, whene'er I touch the lyre, And magnify with irritation's zeal, If heartfelt pain e'er led me to accuse POETS. And turned each fairer image in his brain 1770; and after her decease, Darwin seems to have commenced his botanical and literary pur 'Twas thine, with constant love, through lingering years, suits. He was at first afraid that the reputation To bathe thy idiot orphan in thy tears; Thy fond maternal heart adhered to hope and prayer: O might he thence receive the happy skill, Thy virtues, worthy of immortal praise! 6 of a poet would injure him in his profession, but being firmly established in the latter capacity, he at length ventured on publication. At this time he lived in a picturesque villa in the neighbourhood of Lichfield, furnished with a grotto and fountain, and here he began the formation of a botanic garden. The spot he has described as adapted to love-scenes, and as being thence a proper residence for the modern goddess of botany. In 1781 appeared the first part of Darwin's Botanic Garden, a poem in glittering and polished heroic verse, designed to describe, adorn, and allegorise the Linnæan system of Nature, who decked thy form with beauty's flowers, botany. The Rosicrucian doctrine of gnomes, Exhausted on thy soul her finer powers; Taught it with all her energy to feel Love's melting softness, friendship's fervid zeal, Inscription on the Tomb of Cowper. Ye who with warmth the public triumph feel Ranks with her dearest sons his favourite name. On the Tomb of Mrs Unwin. Trusting in God with all her heart and mind, And watched a poet through misfortune's vale. For all who read his verse revere her name. DR ERASMUS DARWIN. DR ERASMUS DARWIN (1731-1802), an ingenious philosophical, though fanciful poet, was born at Elston, near Newark. Having passed with credit through a course of education at St John's College, Cambridge, he applied himself to the study of physic, and took his degree of bachelor in medicine at Edinburgh in 1755. He then commenced practice in Nottingham, but meeting with little encouragement, he removed to Lichfield, where he long continued a successful and distinguished physician. In 1757 Dr Darwin married an accomplished lady of Lichfield, Miss Mary Howard, by whom he had five children, two of whom died in infancy. The lady herself died in sylphs, nymphs, and salamanders, was adopted by the poet, as 'affording a proper machinery for a botanic poem, as it is probable they were originally the names of hieroglyphic figures representing the elements.' The novelty and ingenuity of Darwin's attempt attracted much attention, and In the same year rendered him highly popular. the poet was called to attend an aged gentleman, Colonel Sachevell Pole of Radbourne Hall, near Derby. An intimacy was thus formed with Mrs Pole; and the colonel dying, the poetical physician in a few months afterwards, in 1781, married the fair widow, who possessed a jointure of £600 per annum. Darwin was now released from all prudential fears and restraints as to the cultivation of his poetical talents, and he went on adding to his floral gallery. In 1789 appeared the second part of his poem, containing the Loves of the Plants. Ovid having, he said, transmuted men, women, and even gods and goddesses, into trees and flowers, he had undertaken, by similar art, to restore some of them to their original animality, after having remained prisoners so long in their respective vegetable mansions : Extract from 'Loves of the Plants. From giant oaks, that wave their branches dark, This is certainly melodious verse, and ingenious subtle fancy. A few passages have moral sentiment and human interest united to the same powers of vivid painting and expression: Roll on, ye stars! exult in youthful prime, Mark with bright curves the printless steps of time; Star after star from heaven's high arch shall rush, In another part of the poem, after describing the cassia plant, cinctured with gold,' and borne on by the current to the coasts of Norway, with all its 'infant loves,' or seeds, the poet, in his usual strain of forced similitude, digresses in the following happy and vigorous lines, to Moses concealed on the Nile, and the slavery of the Africans: So the sad mother at the noon of night, hands, And broke, cursed slavery! thy iron bands. The material images of Darwin are often less happy than the above, being both extravagant and gross, and grouped together without any visible connection or dependence one on the other. He has such a throng of startling metaphors and descriptions, the latter drawn out to an excessive length and tiresome minuteness, that nothing is left to the reader's imagination, and the whole passes like a glittering pageant before the eye, exciting wonder, but without touching the heart or feelings. As the poet was then past fifty, the exuberance of his fancy, and his peculiar choice of subjects, are the more remarkable. A third part of the Botanic Garden was added in 1792; (he received £900 for the copyright of the whole). Darwin next published his Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life, part of which he had written many years previously. This is a curious and original physiological treatise, evincing an inquiring and attentive study of natural phenomena. Dr Thomas Brown, Professor Dugald Stewart, Paley, and others, have, however, successfully combated the positions of Darwin, particularly his theory which refers instinct to sensation. In 1801 our author came forward with another philosophical disquisition, entitled Phytologia, or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening. He also wrote a short treatise on Female Education, intended for the instruction and assistance of part of his own family. This was Darwin's last publication. He had always been a remarkably temperate man. Indeed, he totally abstained from all fermented and spirituous liquors, and in his Botanic Garden he compares their effects to that of the Promethean fire. was, however, subject to inflammation as well as gout, and a sudden attack carried him off in his seventy-first year, on the 18th of April 1802. Shortly after his death, was published a poem, the Temple of Nature, which he had ready for the press, the preface to the work being dated only three months before his death. The Temple of Nature aimed, like the Botanic Garden, to amuse by bringing distinctly to the imagination the beautiful and sublime images of the operations of nature. It is more metaphysical than its predecessor, and more inverted in style and diction. He The poetical reputation of Darwin was as bright formed the subject of his verse. Cowper praised and transient as the plants and flowers which his song for its rich embellishments, and said it was as 'strong' as it was 'learned and sweet.' 'There is a fashion in poetry,' observes Sir Walter Scott, which, without increasing or diminishing the real value of the materials moulded upon it, does wonders in facilitating its currency while it has novelty, and is often found to impede its reception when the mode has passed away.' This has been the fate of Darwin. Besides his coterie at Lichfield, the poet of Flora had considerable influence on the poetical taste of his own day. He may be traced in the Pleasures of Hope of Campbell, and in other young poets of that time. The attempt to unite science with the inspirations of the Muse, was in itself an attractive novelty, and he supported it with various and high powers. His command of fancy, of poetical language, dazzling metaphors, and sonorous versification, was well seconded by his curious and multifarious knowledge. The effect of the whole, however, was artificial, and destitute of any strong or continuous interest. The Rosicrucian machinery of Pope was united to the delineation of human passions and pursuits, and became the auxiliary of wit and satire; but who can sympathise with the loves and metamorphoses of the plants? Darwin had no sentiment or pathos except in very brief episodical passages, and even his eloquent and splendid versification, for want of variety of cadence, becomes monotonous and fatiguing. There is no repose, no cessation from the glare of his bold images, his compound epithets, and high-toned melody. He had attained to rare perfection in the mechanism of poetry, but wanted those impulses of soul and sense, and that guiding taste which were required to give it vitality, and direct it to its true objects. Invocation to the Goddess of Botany. From the Botanic Garden. Stay your rude steps! whose throbbing breasts infold 'But thou whose mind the well-attempered ray 'And if with thee some hapless maid should stray, Winds of the north! restrain your icy gales Nor chill the bosom of these happy vales! Hence in dark heaps, ye gathering clouds, revolve! Disperse, ye lightnings, and ye mists, dissolve! Hither, emerging from yon orient skies, Botanic goddess, bend thy radiant eyes; O'er these soft scenes assume thy gentle reign, Pomona, Ceres, Flora in thy train; O'er the still dawn thy placid smile effuse, And with thy silver sandals print the dews; In noon's bright blaze thy vermeil vest unfold, And wave thy emerald banner starred with gold.' Thus spoke the genius as he stept along, And bade these lawns to peace and truth belong; Down the steep slopes he led with modest skill The willing pathway and the truant rill, Stretched o'er the marshy vale yon willowy mound, Where shines the lake amid the tufted ground; Raised the young woodland, smoothed the wavy green, And gave to beauty all the quiet scene. She comes! the goddess! through the whispering air, Bright as the morn descends her blushing car; Each circling wheel a wreath of flowers entwines, And, gemmed with flowers, the silken harness shines; The golden bits with flowery studs are decked, Destruction of Sennacherib's Army by a Pestilential Wind. From the Economy of Vegetation. From Ashur's vales when proud Sennacherib trod, Loud shrieks of matrons thrilled the troubled air, Gave the soft south with poisonous breath to blow, Death of Eliza at the Battle of Minden. Now stood Eliza on the wood-crowned height, A ball now hisses through the airy tides— Áh me!' she cried, and sinking on the ground, Kissed her dear babes, regardless of the wound; 'O cease not yet to beat, thou vital urn! Wait, gushing life, O wait my love's return!' Hoarse barks the wolf, the vulture screams from far! The angel Pity shuns the walks of war! 'O spare, ye war-hounds, spare their tender age; Quick through the murmuring gloom his footsteps tread, O'er groaning heaps, the dying and the dead, Soon hears his listening son the welcome sounds, Song to May.-From the Loves of the Plants? Born in yon blaze of orient sky, Sweet May! thy radiant form unfold; For thee the fragrant zephyrs blow, For thee descends the sunny shower; And brighter blossoms gem the bower. And hail thee Goddess of the spring! *Those who have the opportunity may compare this death-scene (much to the advantage of the living author) with that of Gertrude of Wyoming, which may have been suggested, very remotely and quite unconsciously, by Darwin's Eliza. Sir Walter Scott excels in painting battle-pieces, as overseen by some interested spectator. Eliza at Minden is circumstanced so nearly like Clara at Flodden, that the mighty Minstrel of the North may possibly have caught the idea of the latter from the Lichfield botanist; but oh, how has he triumphed 1-Montgomery's Lectures on Poetry, 1833. Song to Echo.-From the same. Sweet Echo! sleeps thy vocal shell, Here may no clamours harsh intrude, Be thine to pour these vales along And if, like me, some love-lorn maid MISS SEWARD. ANNA SEWARD (1747-1809) was the daughter of the Rev. Mr Seward, canon-residentiary of Lichfield, himself a poet, and one of the editors of Beaumont and Fletcher. This lady was early trained to a taste for poetry, and, before she was nine years of age, she could repeat the first three books of Paradise Lost. Even at this time she says, she was charmed with the numbers of Milton. Miss Seward wrote several elegiac poems-an Elegy to the Memory of Captain Cook, a Monody on the Death of Major André, &c.-which, from the popular nature of the subjects, and the animated though inflated style of the composition, enjoyed great celebrity. Darwin complimented her as 'the inventress of epic elegy;' and she was known by the name of the Swan of Lichfield. A poetical novel, entitled Louisa, was published by Miss Seward in 1782, and passed through several editions. After bandying compliments with the poets of one generation, Miss Seward engaged Sir Walter Scott in a literary correspondence, and bequeathed to him for publication three volumes of her poetry, which he pronounced execrable. At the same time she left her correspondence to Constable, and that publisher gave to the world six volumes of her letters. Both collections were unsuccessful. The applauses of Miss Seward's early admirers were only calculated to excite ridicule, and the vanity and affectation which were her besetting sins, destroyed equally her poetry and prose. Some of her letters, however, are written with spirit and discrimination. THE ROLLIAD. A series of political satires, commencing about 1784, and written by a few men of wit and fashion, attracted much attention, and became extensively popular. They appeared first in a London newspaper, the earliest-from which the name of the collection was derived-being a satire on Colonel, afterwards Lord Rolle. The Rolliad-consisting of pretended criticism on an imaginary epic poem -was followed by Probationary Odes for the Laureateship, and Political Eclogues. The design of the Probationary Odes was probably suggested by Pope's ridicule of Cibber; and the death of Whitehead, the poet-laureate, in 1785, was seized |