'Tis strange that man, a reas'ning creature,
Shou'd miss a God in viewing nature:
Whose high perfections are display'd
In ev'ry thing his hands have inade:
Ev'n when we think their traces lost,
When found again, we see them most;
The night, itself which you would blame
As something wrong in nature's frame,
Is bat a curtain to invest

Her weary children, when at rest:
Like that which mothers draw to keep
The light off from a child asleep.
Beside, the fears which darkness breeds,
At least augments, in vulgar heads,
Are far from useless, when the mind
Is narrow and to Earth confin'd;
They make the wordling think with pain
On frauds and oaths and ill got gain;
Force from the ruffian's hand the knife
Just rais'd against his neighbour's life;
And in defence of virtue's cause
Assist each sanction of the laws.

But souls serene, where wisdom dwells
And superstitious dread expels,
The silent majesty of night
Excites to take a nobler flight;
With saints and angels to explore
The wonders of creating pow'r ;
And lifts on contemplation's wings
Above the sphere of mortal things:
Walk forth and tread those dewy plains
Where night in awful silence reigns;
The sky's serene, the air is still,

The woods stand list'ning on each hill,
To catch the sounds that sink and swell
Wide-floating from the ev'ning bell,
While foxes howl and beetles hum,
Sounds which make silence still more dumb:
And try if folly rash and rude

Dares on the sacred hour intrude.

Then turn your eyes to Heav'n's broad frame,
Attempt to quote those lights by name,
Which shine so thick and spread so far;
Conceive a sun in every star,

Round which unnumber'd planets roll,
While comets shoot athwart the whole.
From system still to system ranging,
Their various benefits exchanging,
And shaking from their flaming hair
The things most needed every where.
Explore this glorious scene, and say
That night discovers less than day;
That 'tis quite useless, and a sign
That chance disposes, not design:
Whoe'er maintains it, I'll pronounce
Him either mad, or else a dunce.
For reason, though 'tis far from strong,
Will soon find out that nothing's wrong,
From signs and evidences clear
Of wise contrivance every where."

The hermit ended, and the youth
Recame a convert to the truth;
At least, he yielded, and confest
That all was order'd for the best.

PHEBUS AND the shepherd.

I CANNOT think but more or less
True merit always gains success;

That envy, prejudice, and spite,
Will never sink a genius quite.
Experience shows beyond a doubt
That worth, though clouded, will shine out.
The second name for epic song,
First classic of the English tongue,
Great Milton, when he first appear'd,
Was ill receiv'd and coldly heard:
In vain did faction damn those lays
Which all posterity shall praise:
Is Dryden or his works forgot,
For all that Buckingham has wrote ?
The peer's sharp satire, charg'd with sense,
Gives pleasure at no one's expense:
The bard and critic, both inspir'd
By Phebus, shall be still admir'd:
'Tis true that censure, right or wrong,
May hurt at first the noblest song,
And for a while defeat the claim
Which any writer has to fame:

A mere book-merchant with his tools
Can sway with ease the herd of fools,
Who on a moderate computation
Are ten to one in every nation.-
"Your style is stiff-your periods halt→→→
In every line appears a fault-
The plot and incidents ill sorted-
No single character supported—
Your similes will scarce apply;
The whole misshapen, dark and dry.-
All this will pass, and gain its end
On the best poem e'er was penn'd :
But when the first assaults are o'er,
When fops and witlings prate no more,
And when your works are quite forgot
By all who praise or blame by rote:
Without self-interest, spleen, or hate,
The men of sense decide your fate:
Their judgment stands, and what they say
Gains greater credit ev'ry day;
Till groundless prejudices past,
True merit has its due at last.

The hackney scribblers of the town,
Who were the first to write you down,
Their malice chang'd to admiration
Promote your growing reputation,
And to excess of praise proceed;
But this scarce happens till you're dead,
When fame for genius, wit, and skill,
Can do you neither good nor ill;
Yet, if you would not be forgot,
They'll help to keep your name afloat.
An aged swain that us'd to feed
His flock upon a mountain's head,
Drew crouds of shepherds from each hill,
To hear and profit by his skill;
For ev'ry simple of the rock,
That can offend or cure a flock,
He us'd to mark, and knew its pow'r
In stem and foliage, root and flow'r,
Beside all this, he cou'd foretel
Both rain and sunshine passing well;
By deep sagacity he'd find,
The future shiftings of the wind;
And guess more shrewdly ev'ry year
If mutton wou'd be cheap or dear,
To tell his skill in every art,
Of which he understood a part,
His sage advice was wrapt in tales,
Which oft persuade when reason fails.

To do him justice every where
Wou'd take more time than I can spare,
And therefore now shall only touch
Upon a fact which authors vouch;
That Phebus oft wou'd condescend
To treat this shepherd like a friend:
Oft when the solar chariot past,
Provided he was not in haste,

He'd leave his steeds to take fresh breath,
And crop the herbage of the heath;
While with the swain a turn or two
He'd take, as landlords use to do,
When, sick of finer folks in town,
They find amusement in a clown.
One morning when the god alighted,

.

His winged steeds look'd wild and frighted;
The whip it seems had not been idle,
One's trace's broke, another's bridle:
All four were switch'd in very part,
Like common jades that draw a cart,
Whose sides and haunches all along
Show the just measure of the thong.
"Why, what's the matter
"My lord, it gives your servant pain;
Sure some offence is in the case,
I read it plainly in your face."

Those watry mirrors send your light
In streams amidst the shades of night:
Thus length'ning out your reign much more
Than they had shorten'd it before.
As this is so, I must maintain
You've little reason to complain:
For when the matter's understood,
The ill seems balanc'd by the good;
The only diff'rence in the case
Is that the mischief first takes place,
The compensation when you're gone
Is rather somewhat late, I own:
But since 'tis so, you'll own 'tis fit
To make the best on't, and submit."

THE BREEZE and the TEMPEST.

"Offence," quoth Phebus, vex'd and heated; "Tis one indeed and oft repeated:

Since first I drove through Heav'n's highway,
That's before yesterday you'll say,
The envious clouds in league with night
Conspire to intercept my light;
Rank vapours breath'd from putrid lakes,
The streams of common-sew'rs and jakes,
Which under-ground shou'd be confin'd,
Nor suffer'd to pollute the wind;
Escap'd in air by various ways,
Extinguish or divert my rays.
Oft in the morning, when my steeds
Above the ocean lift their heads,
And when I hope to see my beams
Far glittering on the woods and streams:
A ridge of lazy clouds that sleep
Upon the surface of the deep,
Receive at once and wrap me round
In fogs extinguish'd half and drown'd.
But mark my purpose, and by Styx
I'm not soon alter'd when I fix ;
If things are suffer'd at this pass,
I'll fairly turn my nags to grass:
No more this idle round I'll dance,
But let all nature take its chance."
"If," quoth the shepherd, "it were fit
To argue with the god of wit,

I cou'd a circumstance suggest
That wou'd alleviate things at least.
That clouds oppose your rising light
Full oft and lengthen out the night,
Is plain; but soon they disappear,
And leave the sky serene and clear;
We ne'er expect a finer day,
Than when the morning has been gray;
Besides, those vapours which confine
Yon issuing from your eastern shrine,
By heat sublim'd and thinly spread,
Streak all the ev'ning sky with red:
And when your radiant orb in vain
Wou'd glow beneath the western main,
And not a ray cou'd reach our eyes,
Unless reflected from the skies,

he citizen must change his trade;
His steers the husbandman unyokes,
The shepherd too must quit his flocks,
His harmless life and honest gain,
To rob, to murder, and be slain:
The fields, once fruitful, yield no more
Their yearly produce as before:
Each useful plant neglected dies,
While idle weeds licentious rise
Unnumber'd, to usurp the land
Where yellow harvests us'd to stand.
Lean famine soon in course succeeds;
Diseases follow as she leads.

No infant bands at close of day

In ev'ry village sport and play.

The streets are throng'd with orphans dying
For want of bread, and widows crying:
Fierce rapine walks abroad unchain'd,
By civil order not restrain'd:
Without regard to right and wrong,
The weak are injur'd by the strong;
The hungry mouth but rarely tastes
The fatt'ning food which riots wastes,
All ties of conscience lose their force,
Ev'n sacred oaths grow words of course.
By what strange cause are kings inclin'd
To heap such mischiefs on mankind?
What pow'rful arguments control
The native dictates of the soul?
The love of glory and a name
Loud-sounded by the trump of Fame:
Nor shall they miss their end, unless
Their guilty projects want success.
Let one possess'd of sov'reign sway
Invade and murder and betray,
Let war and rapine fierce be hurl'd
Through half the nations of the world;

And prove successful in a course

Of bad designs, and actions worse,
At once a demi-god he grows,

And, incens'd both in verse and prose,
Becomes the idol of mankind;

Though to what's good he's weak and blind;
Approv'd, applauded, and respected,
While better rulers are neglected.

Where Shotts's airy tops divide
Fair Lothian from the vale of Clyde,
A tempest from the east and north
Fraught with the vapours of the Forth,
In passing to the Irish seas,

Once chanc'd to meet the western breeze.
The tempest hail'd him with a roar,
"Make haste and clear the way before;
No paltry zephyr must pretend
To stand before me, or contend:
Begone, or in a whirlwind tost
Your weak existence will be lost."

The tempest thus:-The breeze reply'd, "If both our merits shou'd be try'd, Impartial justice wou'd decree

That you shou'd yield the way to me."

At this the tempest rav'd and storm'd,
Grew black and ten times more deform'd.
"What qualities," quoth he, "of thine,
Vain flatt'ring wind, can equal mine?
Breath'd from some river, lake, or bog,
Your rise at first is in a fog;
And creeping slowly o'er the meads
Scarce stir the willows or the reeds;
While those that feel you hardly know
The certain part from which you blow.
From Earth's deep womb, the child of fire,
Fierce, active, vigorous, like my sire,
I rush to light; the mountains quake
With dread, and all their forests shake:
The globe itself convuls'd and torn,
Feels pangs unusual when I'm born:
Now free in air, with sov'reign sway
I rule, and all the clouds obey:
From east to west my pow'r extends,
Where day begins and where it ends:
And from Bootes downwards far,
Athwart the track of ev'ry star.
Through me the polar deep disdains
To sleep in winter's frosty chains;
But rous'd to rage, indignant heaves
Huge rocks of ice upon its waves;
While dread tornados lift on high
The broad Atlantic to the sky.
I rule the elemental roar,

And strew with shipwrecks ev'ry shore:
Nor less at land my pow'r is known
From Zembla to the burning zone.
I bring Tartarian frosts to kill
The bloom of summer; when I will
Wide desolation doth appear
To mingle and confound the year:
From cloudy Atlas wrapt in night,
On Barca's sultry plains I light,
And make at once the desert rise
In dusty whirlwinds to the skies;
In vain the trav'ler turns hissteed,
And shuns me with his utmost speed;
I overtake him as he flies,

O'erblown he struggles, pants, and dies.
Where some proud city lifts in air
Its spires, I make a desert bare;

And when I choose, for pastime's sake,
Can with a mountain shift a lake;
The Nile himself, at my command.
Oft hides his head beneath the sand,
And midst dry deserts blown and tost,
For many a sultry league is lost.
All this I do with perfect ease,
And can repeat whene'er I please:
What merit makes you then pretend
With me to argue and contend,
When all you boast of force or skill
Is scarce enough to turn a milf,
Or help the swain to clear his corn,
The servile tasks for which you're born?"
"Sir," quoth the breeze, "if force alone
Must pass for merit, I have none;
At least I'll readily confess

That yours is greater, mine is less.
But merit rightly understood
Consists alone in doing good;
And therefore you yourself must see
That preference is due to me:

I cannot boast to rule the skies
Like you, and make the ocean' rise,
Nor e'er with shipwrecks strew the shore,
For wives and orphans to deplore.
Mine is the happier task, to please
The mariner, and smooth the seas,
And waft him safe from foreign harms
To bless his consort's longing arms.
With you I boast not to confound
The seasons in their annual round,
And marr that harmony in nature
That comforts ev'ry living creature.
But oft from warmer climes I bring
Soft airs to introduce the spring;
With genial heat unlock the soil,
And urge the ploughman to his toil:

I bid the op'ning blooms unfold
Their streaks of purple, blue and gold,
And waft their fragrance to impart
That new delight to ev'ry heart,
Which makes the shepherd all day long
To carrol sweet his vernal song:
The summer's sultry heat to cool,
From ev'ry river, lake and pool,

I skim fresh airs. The tawny swain,
Who turns at noon the furrow'd plain,
Refresh'd and trusting in my aid,
His task pursues and scorns the shade:
And ev'n on Afric's sultry coast,
Where such immense exploits you boast,
I blow to cool the panting flocks
'Midst deserts brown and sun-burnt rocks,
And health and vigour oft supply
To such as languish, faint and die:
Those humbler offices you nam'd,
To own I'll never be asham'd,
With twenty others that conduce
To public good or private use,
The meanest of them far outweighs
The whole amount of all your praise;
If to give happiness and joy,
Excels the talent to destroy."

The tempest, that till now had lent
Attention to the argument,
Again began (his patience lost)
To rage, to threaten, huff and boast:
Since reason fail'd, resolv'd in course
The question to decide by force,

And his weak opposite to brave.-
The breeze retreated to a cave
To shelter, till the raging blast
Had spent its fury and was past.

THE CROW AND THE OTHER
BIRDS.

CONTAINING AN USEFUL HINT TO THE CRITICS.
Is ancient times, tradition says,

When birds like men would strive for praise;
The bullfinch, nightingale, and thrush,
With all that chant from tree or bush,
Wou'd often meet in song to vie;
The kinds that sing not, sitting by.
A knavish crow, it seems, had got
The nack to criticise by rote;
He understood each learned phrase,
As well as critics now-a-days:

Some say, he learn'd them from an owl,
By list'ning where he taught a school.
'Tis strange to tell, this subtil creature,
Though nothing musical by nature,
Had learn'd so well to play his part,
With nonsense couch'd in terms of art,
As to be own'd by all at last
Director of the public taste.
Then puff'd with insolence and pride,
And sure of numbers on his side,
Each song he freely criticis'd;
What he approv'd not, was despis'd:
But one false step in evil hour
For ever stript him of his pow'r.
Once when the birds assembled sat,
All list'ning to his formal chat;
By instinct nice he chanc'd to find
A cloud approaching in the wind,
And ravens hardly can refrain

From croaking when they think of rain;
His wonted song he sung: the blunder
Amaz'd and scar'd them worse than thunder;
For no one thought so harsh a note
Cou'd ever sound from any throat;
They all at first with mute surprise
Each on his neighbour turn'd his eyes:
But scorn succeeding soon took place,
And might be read in ev'ry face.
All this the raven saw with pain,
And strove his credit to regain.

Quoth he, "The solo which ye heard
In public shou'd not have appear'd;
The trifle of an idle hour,

To please my mistress once when sour:
My voice, that's somewhat rough and strong,
Might chance the melody to wrong,
But, try'd by rules, you'll find the grounds,
Most perfect and harmonious sounds."-
He reason'd thus; but to his trouble,
At every word the laugh grew double.
At last o'ercome with shame and spite,
He flew away quite out of sight.

THE HARE AND THE PARTAN The chief design of this fable is to give a true specimen of the Scotch dialect, where it may be supposed to be most perfect, namely, in [Partan] A Crab,

Mid-Lothian, the seat of the capital. The
style is precisely that of the vulgar Scotch;
and that the matter might be suitable to it, I
chose for the subject a little story adapted to
the ideas of peasants. It is a tale commonly
told in Scotland among the country people;
and may be looked upon as of the kind of those
aniles fabellæ, in which Horace observes his
country neighbours were accustomed to con-
vey their rustic philosophy.

A canny man will scarce provoke
Ae 3 creature livin, for a joke;
For be they weak or be they strang,

A jibe leaves after it a stang

To mak them think on't; and a laird?
May find a begger sae prepar'd,

Wi pawks and wiles, whar pith is wantin,
As soon will mak him rue his tauntin.
Ye hae my moral, if am able

All fit it nicely wi a fable.

A hare, ae morning, chanc'd to see
A partan creepin on a lee1o,
A fishwife "wha was early oot
Had drapt 12 the creature thereaboot.
Mawkin 13 bumbas'd 14 and frighted sair
To see a thing but hide and hair16,
Which if it stur'd not might be taen 17
For naething ither than a stane 18.
A squunt-wise 19, wamblingo sair beset
Wi gerse and rashes like a net,

A canny man] A canny man signifies nearly the same thing as a prudent man: but when the Scotch say that a person is not canny, they mean not that they are imprudent, but mischievous and dangerous. If the term not canny is applied to persons without being explained, it charges them with sorcery and witchcraft.

Ae] One.

Strang] Strong. The Scotch almost always turn o in the syllable ong, into a. In place of long, they say lang; in place of tongs, tangs; as here strang, for strong.

s Ajibe] A satirical jest.

Stang]

Sting.

7 Laird A gentleman of an estate in land. Pawks] Stratagems.

9 Pith] Strength.

10 Lee] A piece of ground let run into grass for pasture.

Fishwife] A woman thats sells fish. It is to be observed that the Scotch always use the word woman.

Drapt] Dropt.

First thought to rin a2 for't; (for bi kind
A hare's nae fechter 23, ye maun mind 14)
But seeing, that wi 25 aw its strength
It scarce cou'd creep a tether length,
The hare grew baulder 27 and cam near,
Turn'd playsome, and forgat her fear.
Quoth Mawkin, "Was there ere in nature
Sae feckless 18 and sae poor a creature?
It scarcely kens 9, or am mistaen,
The way to gang 3° or stand its lane31
See how it steitters; all be bund 33
To rin a mile of up-hill grund
Before it gets a rig-braid frae 34"

The place its in, though doon the brae."
Mawkiu wi this began to frisk,
And thinkin 36 there was little risk,
Clapt baith her feet on Partan's back,
And turn'd him awald " in a crack.
To see the creature sprawl, her sport
Grew twice as good, yet prov'd but short.
For patting wi her fit38, in play,
Just whar the Partan's nippers lay,
He gript it fast, which made her squeel,
And think she bourded 39 wi the deil.
She strave to rin, and made a fistle:

The tither catch'd a tough bur thristle4° :

Its lane] Alone, or without assistance. $2 Steitters] Walks in a weak stumbling way. All be bund] I will be bound.

34 A rig-braid frae] The breadth of a ridge from. In Scotland about four fathoms. Brae] An ascent or descent. It is worth observing, that the Scotch when they mention a rising ground with respect to the whole of it, they call it a knau if small, and a hill if great; but if they respect only one side of either, they call it a brae: which is probably a corruption of the English word brow, according to the analogy I mentioned before.

Thinkin] Thinking. When polysyllables terminate in ing, the Scotch almost always neglect the g, which softens the sound. Awald] Topsy-turvy. Fit] Foot,

Bourded] To bourd with any person is to attack him in the way of jest.

Thristle] Thistle. The Scotch, though they commonly affect soft sounds, and throw out consonants and take in vowels in order to obtain them, yet in some cases, of which this is an example, they do the very reverse: and bring in VOL. XVI.

"HERE take your papers."-"Have you look'd them o'er?"

"Yes, half a dozen times, I think, or more." "And will they pass?"-"They'll serve but for a day;

Few books can now do more: you know the way;
A trifle's puff'd till one edition's sold,
In half a week at most a book grows old.
The penny turn'd 's the only point in view,
So ev'ry thing will pass if 'tis but new."-
"By what you say I easily can guess
You rank me with the drudges for the press;
Who from their garrets show'r Pindarics down,
Or plaintive elegies to lull the town."-

"You take me wrong: I only meant to say,
That ev'ry book that 's new will have its day;
The best no more: for books are seldom read;
The world's grown dull, and publishing, a trade.
Were this not so, cou'd Ossian's deathless strains,
Of high heroic times the sole remains,
Strains which display perfections to our view,
Which polish'd Greece and Italy ne'er knew,
With modern epics share one common lot,
This day applauded and the next forgot?"

"Enough of this; to put the question plain, Will men of sense and taste approve my strain? Will my old-fashion'd sense and comic ease With better judges have a chance to please?"

"The question's plain, but hard to be resolv'd;
One little less important can be solv'd:
The men of sense and taste, believe it true,
Will ne'er to living authors give their due.
They 're candidates for fame in diff'rent ways;
One writes romances and another plays,
A third prescribes you rules for writing well,
Yet bursts with envy if you shou'd excel.
Through all fame's walks, the college and the
court,

The field of combat and the field of sport;
The stage, the pulpit, senate-house and bar,
Merit with merit lives at constant war."

"All who can judge affect not public fame;
Of those that do the paths are not the same:
A grave historian hardly needs to fear
The rival glory of a sonnetteer:
The deep philosopher, who turns mankind
Quite inside outwards, and dissects the mind,
Wou'd look but whimsical and strangely out,
To grudge some quack his treatise on the gout."-

superfluous consonants to roughen the sound,
when such sounds are more agreeable to the
roughness of the thing represented.
4 Stending] Leaping.
42 Tyke] Dog.

48 Brewin] Brewing. "To drink of one's own brewing," is a proverbial expression for suffering the effects of one's own misconduct. The English say, "As they bake, so let them brew."