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Inspires with rage, or all your cares dissolves;
Can sooth distraction, and almost despair.
That power is music: far beyond the stretch
Of those unmeaning warblers on our stage;
Those clumsy heroes, those fat-headed gods,
Who move no passion justly but contempt:
Who, like our dancers, light indeed and strong,
Do wond'rous feats, but never heard of grace.
The fault is ours; we bear those monstrous arts;
Good heaven! we praise them: we, with loudest peals,
Applaud the fool that highest lifts his heels;
And, with insipid show of rapture, die
On ideot notes impertinently long.

But he the muse's laurel justly shares,

A poet he, and touch'd with heaven's own fire,
Who, with bold rage or solemn pomp of sounds,
Inflames, exalts, and ravishes the soul;

Now tender, plaintive, sweet almost to pain,
In love dissolves you; now in sprightly strains
Breathes a gay rapture through your thrilling breast;

Or melts the heart with airs divinely sad;

Or wakes to horror the tremendous strings.

Such was the bard, whose heavenly strains of old
Appeas'd the fiend of melancholy Saul.

Such was, if old and heathen fame say true,
The man who bade the Theban domes ascend,
And tam'd the savage nations with his song;
And such the Thracian, whose melodious lyre,
Tun'd to soft woe, made all the mountains weep;
Sooth'd ev'n th' inexorable powers of hell,
And half-redeem'd his lost Eurydice.
Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,
Expels diseases, softens every pain,
Subdues the rage of poison, and the plague;
And hence the wise of ancient days ador'd
One Power of physic, melody and song.

RICHARD GLOVER was born in St. Martin's Lane, Cannon-street, in 1712. His father was a London merchant; and, although his verses procured for him an early reputation, he was prudent enough not to permit the attractions of the Muse to seduce him from the profitable study of the ledger. In 1737, he published "Leonidas," an epic poem in twelve books; it has long ceased to retain its hold on the favour of the public, but in his own day it obtained a very large share of popularity, passed through several editions; and procured his introduction to the society of all the leading wits of the age. As a citizen of London, he held a very prominent place; busied himself incessantly to promote its commercial interests; and became a valuable partizan of the Anti-Court party, then led by Lord Lyttleton, and headed by the Prince of Wales. In 1761, he was elected Member of Parliament for Weymouth; and as a zealous and active representative, was entitled to the gratitude of his country. The concluding years of his life were spent in calm retirement and learned ease; and he died at his house in Albemarle-street, in 1785.

Besides a few "miscellanies," and his tragedies "Boadicea" and "Medea," his only poetical productions are "Leonidas" and the "Athenaid," a sequel to it, printed after his death. It is admitted that much of the success which attended the publication of his poem arose out of the peculiar character of the times. "A zeal, or rather rage for liberty, prevailed in England: a constellation of great men, distinguished by their virtues as well as their talents, had set themselves in opposition to the Court; every composition that bore the sacred name of freedom recommended itself to their protection, and soon obtained possession of the public favour. Hence a poem founded on the noblest principles of liberty, and displaying the most brilliant examples of patriotism, soon found its way into the world." In proportion, however, as the political fever was subdued, the ardour of the lovers of poetry "sunk into a cold forgetfulness with regard to it; and the writer lived to experience that sterling merit alone can secure a fame which is enduring. Leonidas is as a whole but a dull, heavy, and prosaic performance; although it contains many passages of great beauty and power. Lyttleton, in a laudatory piece of criticism, in which he compared the author to Milton, seems to have divined the cause of its failure;-"there never was an epic poem which had so near a relation to Common

Sense."

The story is that of the hero of Thermopylæ; and the Athenaid is a poetical history of the subsequent wars between the Greeks and Persians; the design and result of which are thus explained by the concluding lines.

"Night drops her shade

On thirty millions slaughter'd. Thus thy death
Leonidas of Sparta was aveng'd."

Although it may be considered a task of no ordinary labour to peruse the twelve books of Leonidas and the thirty books of the Athenaid; and although the reader is perpetually wearied by the long and tame descriptions, lifeless characters, and tedious dialogues with which both the poems abound, he will be continually cheered by some passage of surpassing beauty, and lured on by the deep and exciting interest of a skilfully wrought story. The portrait of the hero is admirably drawn ; and its moral grandeur is happily contrasted with that of Xerxes, the proud but mean leader of the millions who crushed the handful of patriots at Thermopylæ. The poet was especially fortunate in his management of the catastrophe; the death of the self-devoted band is never for a moment considered in any other light than that of an entire triumph; they fall amid heaps of their slaughtered enemies; but their blood has purchased the freedom of their country. Considerations of the glory they achieve and the liberty they win, bear away the reader from thought of what the victory has cost; and the poet has produced that which is produced so rarely, a sensation of delight when they perish, for whom his sympathies have been so long excited.

We have extracted one of the miscellaneous poems of Glover; it is, we think, among the most beautiful and pathetic ballads in the language; the compliment which the unfortunate Hosier pays to the successful Vernon has perhaps been

GLOVER.

ADMIRAL HOSIER'S GHOST.

As near Porto-Bello lying

On the gently-swelling flood,
At midnight, with streamers flying,
Our triumphant navy rode;
There while Vernon sat all glorious

From the Spaniard's late defeat,
And his crews with shouts victorious,
Drank success to England's fleet:

On a sudden, shrilly sounding,

Hideous yells and shrieks were heard; Then each heart with fear confounding, A sad troop of ghosts appear'd,

On thirty millions slaughter'd. Thus thy death

Leonidas of Sparta was aveng'd.”

Although it may be considered a task of no ordinary labour to peruse the twelve books of Leonidas and the thirty books of the Athenaid; and although the reader is perpetually wearied by the long and tame descriptions, lifeless characters, and tedious dialogues with which both the poems abound, he will be continually cheered by some passage of surpassing beauty, and lured on by the deep and exciting interest of a skilfully wrought story. The portrait of the hero is admirably drawn ; and its moral grandeur is happily contrasted with that of Xerxes, the proud but mean leader of the millions who crushed the handful of patriots at Thermopyla. The poet was especially fortunate in his management of the catastrophe; the death of the self-devoted band is never for a moment considered in any other light than that of an entire triumph; they fall amid heaps of their slaughtered enemies; but their blood has purchased the freedom of their country. Considerations of the glory they achieve and the liberty they win, bear away the reader from thought of what the victory has cost; and the poet has produced that which is produced so rarely, a sensation of delight when they perish, for whom his sympathies have been so long excited.

We have extracted one of the miscellaneous poems of Glover; it is, we think, among the most beautiful and pathetic ballads in the language; the compliment which the unfortunate Hosier pays to the successful Vernon has perhaps been

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

As near Porto-Bello lying

On the gently-swelling flood,
At midnight, with streamers flying,
Our triumphant navy rode;
There while Vernon sat all glorious
From the Spaniard's late defeat,
And his crews with shouts victorious,
Drank success to England's fleet:

On a sudden, shrilly sounding,

Hideous yells and shrieks were heard; Then each heart with fear confounding, A sad troop of ghosts appear'd,

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