6 That mocks the tear it forced to flow; Lo! in the vale of years beneath The painful family of Death, More hideous than their queen: This racks the joints, this fires the veins, That numbs the soul with icy hand, To each his sufferings: all are men, The unfeeling for his own. Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies? Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise. [The Bard.-A Pindaric Ode.] [This ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales, that Edward I., when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the bards that fell into his hands to be put to death.] 'Ruin seize thee, ruthless king, Confusion on thy banners wait; He wound with toilsome march his long array. On a rock, whose haughty brow Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood, Robed in the sable garb of wo, With haggard eyes the poet stood (Loose his beard, and hoary hair Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air); Hark, how each giant oak, and desert cave, 1 Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract which the Welsh themselves call Craigian-eryri. It included all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire, as far east as the river Conway. R. Hygden, speaking of the castle of Conway, built by King Edward I., says, Ad ortum amnis Conway ad clivum montis Erery;' and Matthew of Westminster (ad ann. 1283), Apud Aberconway ad pedes montis Snowdonia fecit erigi castrum forte.' 2 Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, son-in-law to King Edward. a Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore. They both were Lords-Marchers, whose lands lay on the borders of Wales, and probably accompanied the king in this expedition. Cold is Cadwallo's tongue, That hushed the stormy main : Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed: Mountains, ye mourn in vain Modred, whose magic song Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topped head. Smeared with gore, and ghastly pale: Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, On yonder cliffs, a grisly band, I see them sit; they linger yet, With me in dreadful harmony they join, And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.' 'Weave the warp, and weave the woof, The winding-sheet of Edward's race. Give ample room, and verge enough The characters of hell to trace. Mark the year, and mark the night, When Severn shall re-echo with affright, The shrieks of death through Berkeley's3 roof that ring, Shrieks of an agonising king! She-wolf4 of France, with unrelenting fangs, That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate, Amazement in his van, with Flight combined, Low6 on his funeral couch he lies! No pitying heart, no eye afford A tear to grace his obsequies. Is the sable warrior7 fled? Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead. Fair laughs the morn,8 and soft the zephyr blows, Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; The rich repast prepare; Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast: Fell Thirst and Famine scowl A baleful smile upon their baffled guest. 1 The shores of Caernarvonshire, opposite to the Isle of Anglesey. 2 Camden and others observe, that eagles used annually to build their eyry among the rocks of Snowdon, which from thence (as some think) were named by the Welsh Craigianeryri, or the crags of the eagles. At this day, I am told, the highest point of Snowdon is called the eagle's nest. That bird is certainly no stranger to this island, as the Scots and the people of Cumberland, Westmoreland, &c., can testify; it has even built its nest in the Peak of Derbyshire.-(See Wiloughby's Ornithology, published by Ray). 3 Edward II., cruelly butchered in Berkeley Castle. 4 Isabel of France, Edward II.'s adulterous queen. 5 Alluding to the triumphs of Edward III. in France, 6 Alluding to the death of that king, abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress. 7 Edward, the Black Prince, dead some time before his father. 8 Magnificence of Richard II.'s reign. See Froissart, and other contemporary writers. 9 Richard II. (as we are told by Archbishop Scroop, and the Heard ye the din of battle bray,1 Lance to lance, and horse to horse! Twined with her blushing foe, we spread: Wallows beneath the thorny shade. Now, brothers, bending o'er the accursed loom, "Edward, lo! to sudden fate (Weave we the woof. The thread is spun). Half of thy hearts we consecrate. (The web is wove. The work is done)." Leave me unblessed, unpitied, here to mourn: But oh! what solemn scenes, on Snowdon's height Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul! All hail, ye genuine kings!10 Britannia's issue bail! Girt with many a baron bold, Sublime their starry fronts they rear; And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old, In bearded majesty appear. In the midst a form divine! Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line; Attempered sweet to virgin-grace. What strings symphonious tremble in the air, confederate lords in their manifesto, by Thomas of Walsingham, and all the older writers) was starved to death. The story of his assassination by Sir Piers, of Exon, is of much later date. 1 Ruinous civil wars of York and Lancaster. 2 Henry VI., George, Duke of Clarence, Edward V., Richard, Duke of York, &c., believed to be murdered secretly in the Tower of London. The oldest part of that structure is vulgarly attributed to Julius Cæsar. 3 Margaret of Anjou, a woman of heroic spirit, who struggled hard to save her husband and her crown. 4 Henry V. 5 Henry VI., very near been canonised. The line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the Eleanor of Castile died a few years after the conquest of Wales. The heroic proof she gave of her affection for her lord is well-known. The monuments of his regret and sorrow for the loss of her, are still to be seen at Northampton, Geddingten, Waltham, and other places. 9 It was the common belief of the Welsh nation, that King Arthur was still alive in Fairy Land, and should return again to reign over Britain. 10 Both Merlin and Taliessin had prophesied, that the Welsh should regain their sovereignty over this island, which seemed to be accomplished in the house of Tudor. Speed, relating an audience given by Queen Elizabeth to Paul Dzialinski, ambassador of Poland, says, And thus she, lion-like, rising, daunted the malipert orator no less with her stately port and majestical deporture, than with the tartnesse of her princelie checkes.' 19 Taliessin, chief of the bards, flourished in the sixth cen Bright Rapture calls, and soaring as she sings, The verse adorn again Fierce War, and faithful Love, And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction dressed. Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. And distant warblings3 lessen on my ear, Fond, impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood, And warms the nations with redoubled ray. Enough for me: with joy I see The different doom our Fates assign. Be thine Despair, and sceptred Care; To triumph, and to die, are mine." He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height, Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Stoke Pogeis Church, and Tomb of Gray. tury. His works are still preserved, and his memory held in 1 Shakspeare. 3 The succession of poets after Milton's time. The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team a-field! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour: The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; But knowledge to their eyes her ample page And froze the genial current of the soul. The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: And read their history in a nation's eyes, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet even these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered muse, This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. One morn I missed him on the 'customed hill, Along the heath and near his favourite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he; The next, with dirges due in sad array Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne: Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.' THE EPITAPH. Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth, A Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown; Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth, And Melancholy marked him for her own. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heaven did a recompense as largely send: He gave to Misery all he had, a tear, He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend. No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose), The bosom of his Father and his God. The Alliance between Government and Education; a Fragment. As sickly plants betray a niggard earth, Of nature idly lavishes her stores, And scatter with a free, though frugal hand, ܂ The spacious animated scene survey, Say, then, through ages by what fate confined, As oft have issued, host impelling host, The blue-eyed myriads from the Baltic coast, Not but the human fabric from the birth To turn the torrent's swift-descending flood, (As lawless force from confidence will grow), What wonder, in the sultry climes that spread, WILLIAM MASON. WILLIAM MASON, the friend and literary executor of Gray, long survived the connection which did him so much honour, but he appeared early as a poet. He was the son of the Rev. Mr Mason, vicar of St. Trinity, Yorkshire, where he was born in 1725. At Pembroke college, Cambridge, he became acquainted with Gray, who assisted him in obtaining his degree of M.A. His first literary production was an attack on the Jacobitism of Oxford, to which Thomas Warton replied in his 'Triumph of Isis.' In 1753 appeared his tragedy of Elfrida, written,' says Southey, on an artificial model, and in a gorgeous diction, because he thought Shakspeare had precluded all hope of excellence in any other form of drama.' The model of Mason was the Greek drama, and he introduced into his play the classic accompaniment of the chorus. A second drama, Caractacus, is of a higher cast than Elfrida:' more noble and spirited in language, and of more sustained dignity in scenes, situations, and character. Mason also wrote a series of odes on Independence, Memory, Melancholy, and The Fall of Tyranny, in which his gorgeousness of diction swells into extravagance and bombast. His other poetical works are his English Garden, a long descriptive poem in blank verse, extended over four books, and an ode on the Commemoration of the British Revolution, in which he asserts those Whig principles which he steadfastly maintained during the trying period of the American war. As in his dramas Mason had made an innovation on the established taste of the times, he ventured, with equal success, to depart from the practice of English authors, in writing the life of his friend Gray. Instead of presenting a continuous narrative, in which the biographer alone is visible, he incorporated the journals and letters of the poet in chronological order, thus making the subject of the memoir in some degree his own biographer, and enabling the reader to judge more fully and correctly of his situation, thoughts, and feelings. The plan was afterwards adopted by Boswell in his Life of Johnson, and has been sanctioned by subsequent usage, in all cases where the subject is of importance enough to demand copious information and minute personal details. The circumstances of Mason's life are soon related. After his career at college, he entered into orders, and was appointed one of the royal chaplains. He held the living of Ashton, and was precentor of York cathedral. When politics ran high, he took an active part on the side of the Whigs, but was respected by all parties. He died in 1797. Mason's poetry cannot be said to be popular, even with poetical readers. His greatest want is simplicity, yet at times his rich diction has a fine effect. In his English Garden,' though verbose and lan [From Caractacus.] Mona on Snowdon calls: Hark, she speaks from all her strings: And burst thy base with thunder's shock: Shall Mona use, than those that dwell In music's secret cells, and lie Steeped in the stream of harmony. Snowdon has heard the strain: Hark, amid the wondering grove And gild the tufted misletoe. Close your wings, and check your flight; Here, arranged in order due, Epitaph on Mrs Mason, in the Cathedral of Bristol. Take, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear: Take that best gift which heaven so lately gave: To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care Her faded form; she bowed to taste the wave, And died! Does youth, does beauty, read the line? Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm? Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine; Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm. Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee; Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move; And if so fair, from vanity as free; As firm in friendship, and as fond in love. Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, (Twas even to thee) yet the dread path once trod, Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high, And bids 'the pure in heart behold their God.' OLIVER GOLDSMITH. OLIVER GOLDSMITH, whose writings range over every department of miscellaneous literature, challenges attention as a poet chiefly for the unaffected ease, grace, and tenderness of his descriptions of rural and domestic life, and for a certain vein of pensive philosophic reflection. His countryman Burke said of himself, that he had taken his ideas of liberty not too high, that they might last him through life, Goldsmith seems to have pitched his poetry in a subdued under tone, that he might luxuriate at will among those images of quiet beauty, comfort, benevolence, and simple pathos, that were most congenial to his own character, his hopes, or his experience. This popular poet was born at Pallas, a small village in the parish of Forney, county of Longford, Ireland, on the 10th of November 1728. He was the sixth of a family of nine children, and his father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, was a poor curate, who eked out the scanty funds which he derived from his profession, by renting and cultivating some land. The poet's father afterwards succeeded to the rectory of Kilkenny West, and removed to the house and farm of Lissoy, in his former parish. Here Goldsmith's youth was spent, and here he found the materials for his Deserted Village. After a good country education, Oliver was admitted a sizer of Trinity college, Dublin, June 11, 1745. The expense of his education was chiefly defrayed by his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Contarini, an excellent man, son to an Italian of the Contarini family at Venice, and a clergyman of the established church. At college, the poet was thoughtless and irregular, and always in want. His tutor was a man of fierce and brutal passions, and having struck him on one occasion before a party of friends, the poet left college, and wandered about the country for some time in the utmost poverty. His brother Henry clothed and carried him back to college, and on the 27th of February 1749, he was admitted to the degree of B.A. Goldsmith now gladly left the university, and returned to Lissoy. |