The promis'd seat of empire shall again Cover the mountain, and command the plain; Now, Solomon! remembering who thou art, Act through thy remnant life the decent part. Go forth; be strong: with patience and with care Perform, and suffer: to thyself severe, Gracious to others, thy desires suppress'd, Diffus'd thy virtues; first of men! be best. Thy sum of duty let two words contain; (0 may they graven in thy heart remain !) Be humble, and be just. The angel said: With upward speed his agile wings he spread; Whilst on the holy ground I prostrate lay, By various doubts impell'd, or to obey, Or to object; at length (my mournful look Heaven-ward erect) determin'd, thus I spoke : "Pough! pr'ythee ne'er trouble thy head with such fancies: Rely on the aid you shall have from Saint Francis: If the money you promis'd be brought to the chest, You have only to die: let the church do the rest. Derry down, &c. "And what will folks say, if they see you afraid? It reflects upon me, as I knew not my trade: Courage, friend; for to-day is your period of sorrow; And things will go better, believe me, to-morrow. Derry down, &c. to-night.". "To-morrow!" our hero replied, in a fright: "He that's hang'd before noon, ought to think of [truss'd up, "Tell your beads," quoth the priest, "and be fairly For you surely to-night shall in Paradise sup.” Derry down, &c. "Alas!" quoth the squire, "howe'er sumptuous the treat, Parbleu! I shall have little stomach to eat; "That I would," quoth the father," and thank you to boot; But our actions, you know, with our duty must suit. Then, turning about to the hangman, he said, "Dispatch me, I pr'ythee, this troublesome blade; For thy cord and my cord both equally tie, And we live by the gold for which other men die." Derry down, &c. A SONG. In vain you tell your parting lover, You wish fair winds may waft him over. Alas! what winds can happy prove, That bear me far from what I love? Alas! what dangers on the main Can equal those that I sustain, From slighted vows, and cold disdain? Be gentle, and in pity choose To wish the wildest tempests loose: T 4 That, thrown again upon the coast THE GARLAND. THE pride of every grove I chose, At morn the nymph vouchsaf'd to place The flowers she wore along the day: And every nymph and shepherd said, That in her hair they look'd more gay Than glowing in their native bed. Undrest at evening, when she found Their odours lost, their colours past; That eye dropt sense distinct and clear, Ran trickling down her beauteous cheek. Dissembling what I knew too well, "My love, my life," said I, "explain This change of humour: pr'ythee tell: That falling tear-what does it mean?" She sigh'd; she smil'd; and, to the flowers "Ah, me! the blooming pride of May, And that of Beauty, are but one: At morn both flourish bright and gay; Both fade at evening, pale, and gone. "At dawn poor Stella danc'd and sung; The amorous youth around her bow'd: At night her fatal knell was rung; I saw, and kiss'd her in her shroud. "Such as she is, who died to-day; Such I, alas! may be to-morrow : Go, Damon, bid thy Muse display The justice of thy Chloe's sorrow." AN ENGLISH PADLOCK. Miss Danaë, when fair and young, The reason of the thing is clear, "Since this has been authentic truth, Does she to no excess incline? "Your care does further yet extend: The rules of friendship too severe, Youthful and healthy, flesh and blood, Allow this logic to be good?" "Sir, will your questions never end? I trust to neither spy nor friend. In short, I keep her from the sight Of every human face." "She'll write." "From pen and paper she's debarr'd.”. "Has she a bodkin and a card? She'll prick her mind." - "She will, you say: I keep her in one room: I lock it: "The key-hole, is that left?"-"Most cer tain." "She'll thrust her letter through, sir Martin.". Where sighs and looks are bought and sold, CELIA and I, the other day, But, oh the change! the winds grow high; Impending tempests charge the sky; The lightning flies, the thunder roars, She turns her head, and wings her flight : "Once more, at least, look back,” said I, "But when vain doubt and groundless fear Do that dear foolish bosom tear; When the big lip and watery eye Tell me the rising storm is nigh; 'Tis then, thou art yon' angry main, Deform'd by winds, and dash'd by rain; And the poor sailor, that must try Its fury, labours less than I. "Shipwreck'd, in vain to land I make, While Love and Fate still drive me back : Forc'd to doat on thee thy own way, I chide thee first, and then obey. Wretched when from thee, vex'd when nigh, I with thee, or without thee, die." 283 JOHN GAY. JOHN GAY, a well-known poet, was born at or near Barnstaple, in Devonshire, in 1688. After an education at the free-school of Barnstaple, he was sent to London, where he was put apprentice to a silkmercer. A few years of negligent attendance on the duties of such a station procured him a separation by agreement from his master; and he not long afterwards addicted himself to poetical composition, of which the first-fruits were his "Rural Sports," pub-composed the work by which he is best known, his lished in 1711, and dedicated to Pope, then first rising to fame. In the following year, Gay, who possessed much sweetness of disposition, but was indolent and improvident, accepted an offer from the Duchess of Monmouth to reside with her as her secretary. He had leisure enough in this employment to produce in the same year his poem of "Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London," which proved one of the most entertaining of its class. It was much admired; and displayed in a striking manner that talent for the description of external objects which peculiarly characterised the author. some South-sea stock presented to him by secretary Craggs, raised his hopes of fortune at one time to a considerable height; but the loss of the whole of this stock affected him so deeply as to throw him into a dangerous degree of languor, for his recovery from which he made trial of the air of Hampstead. He then wrote a tragedy called " The Captives," which was acted with applause; and in 1726, he In 1714, he made his appearance from the press on a singular occasion. Pope and Ambrose Philips had a dispute about the respective merits of their pastorals; upon which, Gay, in order to serve the cause of his friend, undertook to compose a set of pastorals, in which the manners of the country should be exhibited in their natural coarseness, with a view of proving, by a sort of caricature, the absurdity of Philips's system. The offer was accepted; and Gay, who entitled his work "The Shepherd's Week," went through the usual topics of a set of pastorals in a parody, which is often extremely humorous. But the effect was in one respect different from his intended purpose; for his pictures of rural life were so extremely natural and amusing, and intermixed with circumstances so beautiful and touching, that his pastorals proved the most popular works of the kind in the language. This performance was dedicated to Lord Bolingbroke; and at this period Gay seems to have obtained a large share of the favour of the Tory party then in power. He was afterwards nominated secretary to the Earl of Clarendon, in his embassy to the court of Hanover; but the death of Queen Anne recalled him from his situation, and he was advised by his friends not to neglect the opportunity afforded him to ingratiate himself with the new family. He accordingly wrote a poetical epistle upon the arrival of the Princess of Wales, which compliment procured him the honour of the attendance of the prince and princess at the exhibition of a new dramatic piece. Gay had now many friends, as well among persons of rank, as among his brother-poets; but little was yet done to raise him to a state of independence. A subscription to a collection of his poems published in 1720, cleared him a thousand pounds; and "Fables," written professedly for the young Duke of Cumberland, and dedicated to him. In the manner of narration there is considerable ease, together with much lively and natural painting, but they will hardly stand in competition with the French fables of La Fontaine. Gay naturally expected a handsome reward for his trouble; but upon the accession of George II. nothing better was offered him than the post of gentleman-usher to the young Princess Louisa, which he regarded rather as an indignity than a favour, and accordingly declined. The time, however, arrived when he had little occasion for the arts of a courtier to acquire a degree of public applause greater than he had hitherto experienced. In 1727, his famous "Beggar's Opera" was acted at Lincolns-inn-fields, after having been refused at Drury-lane. To the plan of burlesquing the Italian operas by songs adapted to the most familiar tunes, he added much political satire de rived from his formet disappointments; and the result was a composition unique in its kind, of which the success could not with any certainty be foreseen, "It will either (said Congreve) take greatly, or be damned confoundedly." Its fate was for some time in suspense; at length it struck the nerve of public taste, and received unbounded applause. It ran through sixty-three successive representations in the metropolis, and was performed a proportional number of times at all the provincial theatres. Its songs were all learned by heart, and its actors were raised to the summit of theatric fame. This success, indeed, seems to indicate a coarseness in the national taste which could be delighted with the repetition of popular ballad-tunes, as well as a fondness for the delineation of scenes of vice and vulgarity. Gay himself was charged with the mischiefs he had thus, perhaps unintentionally, occasioned; and if the Beggar's Opera delighted the stage, it encountered more serious censure in graver places than has been bestowed on almost any other dramatic piece. By making a highwayman the hero, he has incurred the odium of rendering the character of a freebooter an object of popular ambition; and, by furnishing his personages with a plea for their dishonesty diawn from the universal depravity of mankind, he has been accused of sapping the foundations of all social morality. The author wrote a second part of this work, entitled “ Polly, but the Lord Cham |