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WILLIAM FALCONER.

WILLIAM FALCONER was a native of Edinburgh, | Aurora was never heard of after she passed the and went to sea at an early age in a merchant vessel of Leith. He was afterwards mate of a ship that was wrecked in the Levant, and was one of only three out of her crew that were saved, a catastrophe which formed the subject of his future poem. He was for some time in the capacity of a servant to Campbell, the author of Lexiphanes, when purser of a ship. Campbell is said to have discovered in Falconer talents worthy of cultivation, and when the latter distinguished himself as a poet, used to boast that he had been his scholar. What he learned from Campbell it is not very easy to ascertain. His education, as he often assured Governor Hunter, had been confined to reading, writing, and a little arithmetic, though in the course of his life he picked up some acquaintance with the French, Spanish, and Italian languages. In these his countryman was not likely to have much assisted him; but he might have lent him books, and possibly instructed him in the use of figures. Falconer published his Shipwreck, in 1762, and by the favour of the Duke of York, to whom it was dedicated, obtained the appointment of a midshipman in the Royal George, and afterwards that of purser in the Glory frigate. He soon afterwards married a Miss Hicks, an accomplished and beautiful woman, the daughter of the surgeon of Sheerness yard. At the peace of 1763, he was on the point of being reduced to distressed circumstances by his ship being laid up in ordinary at Chatham, when, by the friendship of Commissioner Hanway, who ordered the cabin of the Glory to be fitted up for his residence, he enjoyed for some time a retreat for study without expense or embarrassment. Here he employed himself in compiling his Marine Dictionary, which appeared in 1769, and has been always highly spoken of by those who are capable of estimating its merits. He embarked also in the politics of the day, as a poetical antagonist to Churchill, but with little advantage to his memory. Before the publication of his Marine Dictionary he had left his retreat at Chatham for a less comfortable abode in the metropolis, and appears to have struggled with considerable difficulties, in the midst of which he received proposals from the late Mr. Murray, the bookseller, to join him in the business which he had newly established. The cause of has refusing this offer was, in all probability, the appointment which he received to the pursership of the Aurora, East Indiaman. In that ship he embarked for India, in September, 1769, but the

Cape, and was thought to have foundered in the
Channel of Mozambique; so that the poet of the
Shipwreck may be supposed to have perished by the
same species of calamity which he had rehearsed.

The subject of the Shipwreck, and the fate of its author, bespeak an uncommon partiality in its favour. If we pay respect to the ingenious scholar who can produce agreeable verses amidst the shades of retirement, or the shelves of his library, how much more interest must we take in the "shipboy on the high and giddy mast" cherishing refined visions of fancy at the hour which he may casually snatch from fatigue and danger. Nor did Falconer neglect the proper acquirements of seamanship in cultivating poetry, but evinced considerable knowledge of his profession, both in his Marine Dictionary and in the nautical precepts of the Shipwreck. In that poem he may be said to have added a congenial and peculiarly British subject to the language; at least, we had no previous poem of any length of which the characters and catastrophe were purely naval.

The scene of the catastrophe (though he followed only the fact of his own history) was poetically laid amidst seas and shores where the mind easily gathers romantic associations, and where it supposes the most picturesque vicissitudes of scenery and climate. The spectacle of a majestic British ship on the shores of Greece brings as strong a a reminiscence to the mind, as can well be imagined, of the changes which time has wrought in transplanting the empire of arts and civilization. Falconer's characters are few; but the calm sagacious commander, and the rough obstinate Rodmond, are well contrasted. Some part of the love-story of Palemon is rather swainish and protracted, yet the effect of his being involved in the calamity leaves a deeper sympathy in the mind for the daughter of Albert, when we conceive her at once deprived both of a father and a lover. The incidents of the Shipwreck, like those of a well-wrought tragedy, gradually deepen, while they yet leave a suspense of hope and fear to the imagination. In the final scene there is something that deeply touches our compassion in the picture of the unfortunate man who is struck blind by a flash of lightning at the helm. I remember, by. the-way, to have met with an affecting account of the identical calamity befalling the steersman of a forlorn vessel in a similar moment, given in a prose and veracious history of the loss of a vessel on the

coast of America. Falconer skilfully heightens
this trait by showing its effect on the commisera-
tion of Rodmond, the roughest of his characters,
who guides the victim of misfortune to lay hold of
the shrouds.

"A flash, quick glancing on the nerves of light,
Struck the pale belmsman with eternal night:
Rodmond, who heard a pitious groan behind,
Touch'd with compassion, gaz'd upon the blind;

And, while around his sad companions crowd,
He guides the unhappy victim to the shroud.
Hie thee aloft, my gallant friend! he cries;
Thy only succour on the mast relies!"

The effect of his sea phrases is to give a definite and authentic character to his descriptions; and his poem has the sensible charm of appearing a transcript of reality, and leaves an impression of truth and nature on the mind.

THE SHIPWRECK.

CANTO I.

ARGUMENT.

Proposal of the subject. Invocation. Apology. Alle gorical description of memory. Appeal to her assist ance. The story begun. Retrospect of the former part of the voyage. The ship arrives at Candia. Ancient state of that island. Present state of the adjacent isles of Greece. The season of the year. Character of the master and his officers. Story of Palemon and Anna. Evening described. Midnight. The ship weighs anchor, and departs from the haven. State of the weather. Morning. Situation of the neighbouring shores. Operation of taking the sun's azimuth. Description of the vessel as seen from the land.

The scene is near the city of Candia; and the time about four days
and a half.

WHILE jarring interests wake the world to arms,
And fright the peaceful vale with dire alarms;
While Ocean hears vindictive thunders roll,
Along his trembling wave, from pole to pole;
Sick of the scene, where war, with ruthless hand,
Spreads desolation o'er the bleeding land;
Sick of the tumult, where the trumpet's breath
Bids ruin smile, and drowns the groan of death!
"Tis mine, retired beneath this cavern hoar,
That stands all lonely on the sea-beat shore,
Far other themes of deep distress to sing
Than ever trembled from the vocal string.
No pomp of battle swells th' exalted strain,
Nor gleaming arms ring dreadful on the plain :
But, o'er the scene while pale Remembrance weeps,
Fate with fell triumph rides upon the deeps,
Here hostile elements tumultuous rise,
And lawless floods rebel against the skies;
Till hope expires, and peril and dismay
Wave their black ensigns on the watery way.
Immortal train, who guide the maze of song,
To whom all science, arts, and arms belong;
Who bid the trumpet of eternal fame
Exalt the warrior's and the poet's name!
If e'er with trembling hope I fondly stray'd
In life's fair morn beneath your hallow'd shade,
To hear the sweetly-mournful lute complain,
And melt the heart with ecstasy of pain;
Or listen, while th' enchanting voice of love,
While all Elysium warbled through the grove;
O! by the hollow blast that moans around,
That sweeps the wild harp with a plaintive sound;
By the long surge that foams through yonder cave,
Whose vaults remurmur to the roaring wave;

With living colours give my verse to glow,
The sad memorial of a tale of wo?

A scene from dumb oblivion to restore,
To fame unknown, and new to epic lore!
Alas; neglected by the sacred Nine,
Their suppliant feels no genial ray divine!
Ah! will they leave Pieria's happy shore,
To plough the tide where wintry tempests roar?
Or shall a youth approach their hallow'd fane,
Stranger to Phoebus, and the tuneful train?-
Far from the Muses' academic grove,
"Twas his the vast and trackless deep to rove
Alternate change of climates has he known,
And felt the fierce extremes of either zone;
Where polar skies congeal th' eternal snow,
Or equinoctial suns for ever glow.
Smote by the freezing or the scorching blast,
"A ship-boy on the high and giddy mast,"*
From regions where Peruvian billows roar,
To the bleak coast of savage Labrador.
From where Damascus, pride of Asian plains!
Stoops her proud neck beneath tyrannic chains,
To where the isthmus,† laved by adverse tides,
Atlantic and Pacific seas divides.

But, while he measured o'er the painful race,
In Fortune's wild illimitable chase,
Adversity, companion of his way!

Still o'er the victim hung with iron sway;
Bade new distresses every instant grow,
Marking each change of place with change of wo
In regions where th' Almighty's chastening hand
With livid pestilence afflicts the land;

Or where pale famine blasts the hopeful year,
Parent of want and misery severe;

Or where, all dreadful in th' embattled line,
The hostile ships in flaming combat join:
Where the torn vessel, wind and wave assail,
Till o'er her crew distress and death prevail-
Where'er he wander'd thus vindictive Fate
Pursued his weary steps with lasting hate!
Roused by her mandate, storms of black array
Winter'd the morn of life's advancing day;
Relax'd the sinews of the living lyre,

And quench'd the kindling spark of vital fire.--
Thus while forgotten or unknown he woos,
What hope to win the coy, reluctant Muse?
Then let not Censure, with malignant joy,
The harvest of his humble hope destroy!
His verse no laurel wreath attempts to claim,
Nor sculptur'd brass to tell the poet's name.
The softer sense with inharmonious sound.
If terms uncouth, and jarring phrases, wound

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