There to the sympathetic heart
Life's best delights belong,
To mitigate the mourner's smart,
To guard the weak from wrong.
Ye sons of luxury, be wise:
Know, happiness for ever flies
The cold and solitary breast;
Then let the social instinct glow,
And learn to feel another's woe,
And in his joy be blest.

O yet, ere Pleasure plant her snare
For unsuspecting youth;

Ere Flattery her song prepare

To check the voice of Truth;

O may

his country's guardian power Attend the slumbering infant's bower, And bright, inspiring dreams impart, To rouse th' hereditary fire,

To kindle each sublime desire,

Exalt, and warm the heart.

Swift to reward a parent's fears,

A parent's hopes to crown,

Roll on in peace, ye blooming years,
That rear him to renown;

When in his finish'd form and face
Admiring multitudes shall trace
Each patrimonial charm combined,
The courteous yet majestic mien,
The liberal smile, the look serene,

The great and gentle mind.

Yet, though thou draw a nation's eyes,

And win a nation's love,

Let not thy towering mind despise

The village and the grove.

No slander there shall wound thy fame,
No ruffian take his deadly aim,
No rival weave the secret snare :
For Innocence with angel smile,
Simplicity that knows no guile,
And Love and Peace are there.

When winds the mountain oak assail,
And lay its glories waste,

Content may slumber in the vale,

Unconscious of the blast.

Through scenes of tumult while we roam,

The heart, alas! is ne'er at home,

It hopes in time to roam no more;
The mariner, not vainly brave,

Combats the storm, and rides the wave,
To rest at last on shore.

Ye proud, ye selfish, ye severe,

How vain your mask of state!
The good alone have joy sincere,
The good alone are great:
Great, when, amid the vale of peace,
They bid the plaint of sorrow cease,
And hear the voice of artless praise;
As when along the trophy'd plain
Sublime they lead the victor train,
While shouting nations gaze

TO THE RIGHT HON.

LADY CHARLOTTE GORDON,

Dressed in a Tartan Scotch Bonnet, with Plumes, &c.

WHY, lady, wilt thou bind thy lovely brow
With the dread semblance of that warlike helin,
That nodding plume, and wreath of various glow,
That graced the chiefs of Scotia's ancient realm ?

Thou knowest that Virtue is of power the source,
And all her magic to thy eyes is given;
We own their empire, while we feel their force,
Beaming with the benignity of heaven.
The plumy helmet, and the martial mien,
Might dignify Minerva's awful charms;
But more resistless far th' Idalian queen-
Smiles, graces, gentleness, her only arms.

THE HERMIT.

AT the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove:
'Twas thus, by the cave of the mountain afar,
While his harp rung symphonions, a hermit began:
No more with himself or with nature at war,
He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man.

Ah! why, all abandon'd to darkness and woe,
Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall?
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
And sorrow no longer thy bosom inthral:
But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay,
Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to mourn;
O soothe him, whose pleasures like thine pass away:
Full quickly they pass-but they never return.

Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky, The Moon, half extinguish'd, her crescent displays : But lately I mark'd, when majestic on high She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze. Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue The path that conducts thee to splendour again. But man's faded glory what change shall renew? Ab fool! to exult in a glory so vain!

Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more;
I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;
For morn is approaching, your charms to restore,
Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew:
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;
Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save.
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn!
O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!

'Twas thus, by the glare of false science betray'd,
That leads, to bewilder; and dazzles, to blind;
My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to
shade,

Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.

O pity, great Father of Light,' then I cried,

Thy creature, who fain would not wander from thee; Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride:

From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free!

And darkness and doubt are now flying away,

No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn.

So breaks on the traveller, faint, and astray,
The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.

See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending,

And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom!

On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are

blending,

And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.'

ON THE REPORT OF A MONUMENT TO BE ERECTED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, TO THE MEMORY OF A LATE AUTHOR, (CHURCHILL.)

(Written in 1765.)

[Part of a letter to a person of quality.]

-LEST your lordship, who are so well acquainted with every thing that relates to true honour, should think hardly of me for attacking the memory of the dead, I beg leave to offer a few words in my own vindi cation.

If I had composed the following verses with a view to gratify private resentment, to promote the interest of any faction, or to recommend myself to the patronage of any person whatsoever, I should have been altogether inexcusable. To attack the memory of the dead from selfish considerations, or from mere wantonness or malice, is an enormity which none can hold in greater detestation than I. But I composed them from very different motives; as every intelligent reader, who pe ruses them with attention, and who is willing to believe me upon my own testimony, will undoubtedly perceive. My motives proceeded from a sincere desire to do some small service to my country, and to the cause of truth and virtue. The promoters of faction I ever did, and ever will consider as the enemies of mankind: to the memory of such I owe no veneration: to the writings of such I owe no indulgence.

Your lordship knows that (Churchill) owed the greatest share of his renown to the most incompetent of all judges, the mob: actuated by the most unworthy of all principles, a spirit of insolence, and inflamed by the vilest of all human passions, hatred to their fellow. citizens. Those who joined the cry in his favour