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THE VILLAGE PASTOR.

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;
Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power,

By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long-remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claim allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sat by his fire, and talked the night away;

Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done,
Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,

And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And even his failings leaned to virtue's side;
But in his duty prompt at every call,

He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all:

And, as a bird each fond endearment tries,
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.
Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed,
The reverend champion stood. At his control
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down, the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last faltering accents whispered praise.
At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,

With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;

Even children followed, with endearing wile,

And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed,
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs, were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.
As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm;
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

GOLDSMITH.

THE PARISH SCHOOLMASTER.

BESIDE yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossomed furze unprofitably gay,

There, in his noisy mansion skilled to rule,
The village master taught his little school;
A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew.
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning's face;
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned;
Yet he was kind; or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declared how much he knew ;
'Twas certain he could write and cipher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And even the story ran that he could guage;
In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill,
For even, though vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length, and thundering sound,
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.

GOLDSMITH.

PART III-POETS OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

THE revival of literature and the fine arts has been remarked in every age and country to accompany the development of free institutions, or the struggle for social and political liberty, and at no period has this been more strikingly verified than at that of the English Reformation. Until Spenser arose to enrich the English language with his immortal verse, the genius of poetry had seemed to slumber from the days of Chaucer, and the names that occur among the versifiers in our language during that long and important interval scarcely include one whose productions could establish a claim for their authors to rank among the great poets of England. It was, indeed, a period little calculated to foster literary genius. War does not, indeed, necessarily cramp the national intellect. On the contrary, the period of the highest development in ancient Greece, was that in which the nation was struggling against barbarian invaders; and the era which stands out prominent above all others in the intellectual history of England, is that when she was internally freeing herself from the trammels of Popery, and guarding her coasts against the invasion of Spanish Armadas, and the like furious crusades. These were struggles which brought

into play all the noblest and most elevated sympathies of the nation. Patriotism, religion, and the love of liberty, combined to give dignity to every effort for the common weal, and to call into exercise the highest motives to action. This, therefore, was an era when the national intellect might be expected to shine the brightest, and we accordingly find belonging to the period extending from the death of Henry VIII. to the restoration of Charles II, a series of violent struggles for religious and political freedom, accompanied by a display of intellectual vigour and power unmatched in the world's history, save by the one grand era when Grecian art and literature sprung into being to give laws and examples to all time.

The accession of Henry VIII. to the throne of England, was the final termination of internal struggles consequent on a disputed succession. His title to the crown was so effectually secured by the union of the two contending lines in his person, that he was left without apprehension of a rival; and thus he became the security to his subjects against any further recurrence of the sanguinary civil wars which had so long desolated the kingdom. That other strife, however, which involved a war of opinions, and a struggle for liberty of conscience, was to find in this very state of things the elements which gave it free scope; and the names of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and the Scottish James, are accordingly the representatives and historical impersonations of the two parties which alternately prevailed, while the liberties of England still hung doubtful in the balance. It was during this eventful era that the poets appeared whose works form the subject of this department of English poetry; and it is of this period that Sir James Mackintosh has remarked: "There never was anywhere

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