In Hampstead, courted by the western wind; Or Greenwich, waving o'er the winding flood; Or lose the world amid the sylvan wilds Of Dulwich, yet by barbarous arts unspoil'd. Green rise the Kentish hills in cheerful air; But on the marshy plains that Lincoln spreads Build not, nor rest too long thy wandering feet. For on a rustic throne of dewy turf, With baneful fogs her aching temples bound, Quartana there presides; a meagre fiend Begot by Eurus, when his brutal force Compress'd the slothful Naiad of the Fens. From such a mixture sprung, this fitful pest With fev'rish blasts subdues the sick'ning land: Cold tremors come, with mighty love of rest, Convulsive yawnings, lassitude, and pains That sting the burden'd brows, fatigue the loins, And rack the joints, and every torpid limb; Then parching heat succeeds, till copious sweats O'erflow: a short relief from former ills. Beneath repeated shocks the wretches pine; The vigour sinks, the habit melts away: The cheerful, pure, and animated bloom Dies from the face, with squalid atrophy Devour'd, in sallow melancholy clad. And oft the sorceress, in her sated wrath, Resigns them to the furies of her train: The bloated Hydrops, and the yellow fiend Ting'd with her own accumulated gall.

VOL. V.

A A

RECOMMENDATION OF A HIGH SITUATION ON THE

SEA-COAST.

FROM THE SAME.

MEANTIME, the moist malignity to shun

Of burthen❜d skies; mark where the dry champaign
Swells into cheerful hills: where marjoram
And thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air;
And where the cynorrhodon with the rose
For fragrance vies; for in the thirsty soil
Most fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes.
There bid thy roofs high on the basking steep
Ascend, there light thy hospitable fires.
And let them see the winter morn arise,
The summer evening blushing in the west;
While with umbrageous oaks the ridge behind
O'erhung, defends you from the blust'ring north,
And bleak affliction of the peevish east.
Oh! when the growling winds contend, and all
The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm;
To sink in warm repose, and hear the din
Howl o'er the steady battlements, delights
Above the luxury of vulgar sleep.

The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarser strain
Of waters rushing o'er the slippery rocks,
Will nightly lull you to ambrosial rest.
To please the fancy is no trifling good,
Where health is studied; for whatever moves
The mind with calm delight, promotes the just

And natural movements of th' harmonious frame.
Besides, the sportive brook for ever shakes
The trembling air; that floats from hill to hill,
From vale to mountain, with incessant change
Of purest element, refreshing still

Your airy seat, and uninfected gods.

Chiefly for this I praise the man who builds
High on the breezy ridge, whose lofty sides
Th' ethereal deep with endless billows chafes.
His
purer mansion nor contagious years
Shall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy.

ADDRESS TO THE NAIADS.

FROM BOOK II. ENTITLED 'DIET.'

Now come, ye Naiads, to the fountains lead;
Now let me wander through your gelid reign.
I burn to view th' enthusiastic wilds
By mortal else untrod. I hear the din
Of waters thund'ring o'er the ruin'd cliffs.
With holy reverence I approach the rocks
Whence glide the streams renown'd in ancient song.
Here from the desert down the rumbling steep
First springs the Nile; here bursts the sounding Po
In angry waves; Euphrates hence devolves

A mighty flood to water half the east;

And there in gothic solitude reclin'd,
The cheerless Tanais pours his hoary urn.

What solemn twilight! what stupendous shades

Enwrap these infant floods! through every nerve
A sacred horror thrills, a pleasing fear

Glides o'er my frame. The forest deepens round;
And more gigantic still th' impending trees
Stretch their extravagant arms athwart the gloom.
Are these the confines of some fairy world?
A land of genii? Say, beyond these wilds
What unknown nations? If indeed beyond
Aught habitable lies. And whither leads,
To what strange regions, or of bliss or pain,
That subterraneous way? Propitious maids,
Conduct me, while with fearful steps I tread
This trembling ground. The task remains to sing
Your gifts (so Pæon, so the powers of health
Command) to praise your crystal element :
The chief ingredient in heaven's various works:
Whose flexile genius sparkles in the gem,
Grows firm in oak, and fugitive in wine;
The vehicle, the source, of nutriment
And life, to all that vegetate or live.

O comfortable streams! with eager lips
And trembling hand the languid thirsty quaff
New life in you; fresh vigour fills their veins.
No warmer cups the rural ages knew ;

None warmer sought the sires of human kind.
Happy in temperate peace! their equal days
Felt not th' alternate fits of feverish mirth,
And sick dejection. Still serene and pleas'd
They knew no pains but what the tender soul
With pleasure yields to, and would ne'er forget.

Blest with divine immunity from ails,

Long centuries they liv'd; their only fate

Was ripe old age, and rather sleep than death.
Oh! could those worthies from the world of gods
Return to visit their degenerate sons,

How would they scorn the joys of modern time,
With all our art and toil improv'd to pain!
Too happy they! but wealth brought luxury,
And luxury on sloth begot disease.

RICHARDSON,

OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD.

ODE TO A SINGING BIRD.

O THOU that glad'st my lonesome hours,
With many a wildly warbled song,
When Melancholy round me low'rs,
And drives her sullen storms along;
When fell Adversity prepares

To lead her delegated train,

Pale Sickness, Want, Remorse, and Pain,
With all her host of carking cares—

The fiends ordain'd to tame the human soul,

And give the humbled heart to sympathy's control;