HORACE'S EPISTLE TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS IN PRAISE OF A COUNTRY LIFE. To Fuscus, who in city sports delights, As where the country spreads its blessings round? The man who cannot, with judicious eye, Then fly from grandeur and the haughty great, The cottage offers a secure retreat, Where you may make that heartfelt bliss your own, To kings and favourites of kings unknown. So he who poverty with horror views, Nor frugal Nature's bounty knows to use, Who sells his freedom in exchange for gold (Freedom for mines of wealth too cheaply sold), Shall make eternal servitude his fate, And feel a haughty master's galling weight. Our fortunes and our shoes are near allied, Pinched in the strait, we stumble in the wide. Cheerful and wise, your present lot enjoy, And on my head your just rebukes employ, If e'er, forgetful of my former self, I toil to raise unnecessary pelf. Gold is the slave or tyrant of the soul, Unworthy to command, it better brooks control. These lines behind Vacuna's fane I penn'd, Sincerely blessed, but that I want my friend. 66 HORACE'S ADVICE HOW TO EXCEL AS A POET. Make the Greek authors your supreme delight. Read them by day, and study them by night. And yet our sires with joy could Plautus hear, Gay were his jests, his numbers charmed the ear;" Let me not say too lavishly they praised, But sure their judgment was full cheaply pleased; If you or I with taste are haply blessed, To know a clownish from a courtly jest; If skilful to discern, when formed with ease, The modulated sounds are taught to please. Thespis, inventor of the tragic art, High o'er the crowd the mimic tribe appeared, Of slow correction and the painful file. Illustrious youths with just contempt receive, Nor let the hardy poem hope to live, Where time and full correction don't refine MORNING. In the barn the tenant cock, Swiftly from the mountain's brow [John Cunningham was the son of a well- | fitly stand side by side with the known wine merchant of Dublin, and was ductions of Shenstone.] born in that city in 1729. At a very early age, indeed before he completed his twelfth year, his poetical genius began to be apparent, and he wrote several pieces which appeared in the Dublin papers. These displayed such ability that he was soon a hero in at least his own circle, and they are yet occasionally sung by the lower classes of Dublin and its neighbourhood, though the name of the author is unknown to the singer. At the age of seventeen he produced a farce entitled Love in a Mist, which was successful so far as Dublin was concerned, and which Garrick is said to have plagiarized to produce his Lying Valet. Before twenty Cunningham became an itinerant player, in which occupation he passed many years of his life. In his wanderings he became closely attached to Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he had always been well received, and which he learned to speak of as his "Home." Thither he retired after leaving the stage in 1763, and there he issued his volume of poems, "chiefly pastoral," a style of composition in which he excelled, and which he was encouraged to cultivate by Shenstone. The book was successful, and highly praised by competent judges. Johnson says of it, "His poems have peculiar sweetness and elegance; his sentiments are generally natural, and his language simple and appropriate to his subject." After protracted suffering the poet died September 18th, 1773, in the forty-fourth year of his age. Cunningham's poems are much better known than the name of the author. One or other of Philomel forsakes the thorn, From the low-roof'd cottage ridge Now the pine-tree's waving top From the balmy sweets, uncloy'd Trickling through the creviced rock Colin, for the promis'd corn Sweet, O sweet the warbling throng On the white emblossom'd spray! Nature's universal song Echoes to the rising day. NOON. Fervid on the glitt'ring flood, By the brook the shepherd dines; Now the flock forsakes the glade, Echo, in her airy round, Cattle court the zephyrs bland, But from mountain, dell, or stream, Not a leaf has leave to stir, Languid is the landscape round, Now the hill-the hedge-is green, EVENING. O'er the heath the heifer strays Free; the furrow'd task is done, Now the village windows blaze, Burnished by the setting sun. Now he hides behind the hill, Sinking from a golden sky. Can the pencil's mimic skill Copy the refulgent dye? Trudging as the plowmen go Where the rising forest spreads, As the lark, with varied tune, Now the hermit howlet peeps As the trout in speckled pride Of Nature (grown weary) you shocking essay! Good faith, he's so handsome, so witty, and kind, I spurn you thus from me-crawl out of my way." | I'd wed-if I were not too young. A wretch, though to-day he's o'erloaded with A youngling, it seems, had been stole from its May soar above those that oppress'd him-to- | ('Twixt Cupid and Hymen a plot), He whispered such soft, pretty things in mine ear! Young Phillis look'd up with a languishing smile, He flattered, he promised, and swore! Such trinkets he gave me, such laces and gear, That, trust me, my pockets ran o'er: "Kind shepherd," she said, "you mistake; I laid myself down just to rest me awhile, But, trust me, have still been awake." Some ballads he bought me, the best he could He placed himself close by her side, find, And sweetly their burthen he sung; And managed the matter, I cannot tell how, NEWCASTLE BEER. Were Poverty-Calumny-Trouble-and Fear When Fame brought the news of Great Britain's Apply for a jorum of Newcastle beer. [Henry Jones was born of very poor parents | most of our earlier authors as well as with at Bewley, near Drogheda, in the year 1721. translations from the poets of Greece and After obtaining at a local school a fair know- Rome. Of course such a student was sure to ledge of the "three R's" he was apprenticed try his hand at versification. His first attempt to a bricklayer. While serving his time he was local in subject, being addressed to the found means of reading a good deal, and corporation of Drogheda, and was so clever before twenty-one he was acquainted with the ❘ that doubts arose in many minds if it were |