RICHARD GLOVER.

GLOVER was a man so remarkable as to be thought capable of having written the letters of Junius, although no one now almost names his name or reads his poetry. He was the son of a Hamburg merchant in London, and born (1712) in St Martin's Lane, Cannon Street. He was educated at a private school in Surrey, but being designed for trade, was never sent to a university, yet by his own exertions he became an excellent classical scholar. At sixteen he wrote a poem to the memory of Sir Isaac Newton, and at twenty-five produced nine books of his 'Leonidas.' Partly through its own merits, partly through its liberal political sentiments, and partly through the influence of Lord Cobham, to whom it was inscribed, and the praise of Fielding and Chatham, it became very popular. In 1739, he produced a poem entitled 'London; or, The Progress of Commerce,' and a spirited ballad entitled 'Admiral Hosier's Ghost,' which we have given, both designed to rouse the national spirit against the Spaniards.

Glover was a merchant, and very highly esteemed among his commercial brethren, although at one time unfortunate in business. When forced by his failure to seek retirement, he produced a tragedy on the subject of Boadicea, which ran the usual nine nights, although it has long since ceased to be acted or read. In his later years his affairs improved; he returned again to public life, was elected to Parliament, and approved himself a painstaking and popular M.P. In 1770, he enlarged his 'Leonidas' from nine books to twelve, and afterwards wrote a sequel to it, entitled 'The Athenais.' Glover spent his closing years in opulent retirement, enjoying the intimacy and respect of the most eminent men of the day, and died in 1785.

'Leonidas' may be called the epic of the eighteenth century, and betrays the artificial genius of its age. The poet rises to his flight like a heavy heron-not a hawk or eagle. Passages in it are good, but the effect of the whole is dulness. It reminds of Cowper's 'Homer,' in which all is accurate, but all is cold, and where even the sound of battle lulls to slumber-or of Edwin

you

Atherstone's 'Fall of Nineveh,' where you are fatigued with uniform pomp, and the story struggles and staggers under a load of words. Thomson exclaimed when he heard of the work of Glover, 'He write an epic, who never saw a mountain!' And there was justice in the remark. The success of 'Leonidas' was probably one cause of the swarm of epics which appeared in the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. Cottle himself being, according to De Quincey, 'the author of four epic poems, and a new kind of blacking.' Their day seems now for ever at an end.

FROM BOOK XII

Song of the Priestess of the Muses to the chosen band after their return from the inroad into the Persian camp, on the night before the Battle of Thermopylæ.

Back to the pass in gentle march he leads

The embattled warriors. They, behind the shrubs,
Where Medon sent such numbers to the shades,
In ambush lie. The tempest is o'erblown.

Soft breezes only from the Malian wave

O'er each grim face, besmeared with smoke and gore,
Their cool refreshment breathe. The healing gale,
A crystal rill near Eta's verdant feet,

Dispel the languor from their harassed nerves,
Fresh braced by strength returning. O'er their heads
Lo! in full blaze of majesty appears

Melissa, bearing in her hand divine

The eternal guardian of illustrious deeds,
The sweet Phœbean lyre. Her graceful train
Of white-robed virgins, seated on a range
Half down the cliff, o'ershadowing the Greeks,
All with concordant strings, and accents clear,
A torrent pour of melody, and swell

A high, triumphal, solemn dirge of praise,
Anticipating fame. Of endless joys

In bless'd Elysium was the song. Go, meet
Lycurgus, Solon, and Zaleucus sage,

Let them salute the children of their laws.

Meet Homer, Orpheus, and the Ascræan bard,
Who with a spirit, by ambrosial food
Refined, and more exalted, shall contend
Your splendid fate to warble through the bowers
Of amaranth and myrtle ever young,
Like your renown. Your ashes we will cull.
In yonder fane deposited, your urns,
Dear to the Muses, shall our lays inspire.
Whatever offerings, genius, science, art
Can dedicate to virtue, shall be yours,
The gifts of all the Muses, to transmit
You on the enlivened canvas, marble, brass,
In wisdom's volume, in the poet's song,
In every tongue, through every age and clime,
You of this earth the brightest flowers, not croft,
Transplanted only to immortal bloom
Of praise with men, of happiness with gods.

ADMIRAL HOSIER'S GHOST.

ON THE TAKING OF PORTO-BELLO FROM THE SPANIARDS BY ADMIRAL VERNONNov. 22, 1739.

1 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 Spaniards' late defeat;
And his crews, with shouts victorious,
Drank success to England's fleet:

2 On a sudden shrilly sounding,

Hideous yells and shrieks were heard;
Then each heart with fear confounding,

A sad troop of ghosts appeared,
All in dreary hammocks shrouded,
Which for winding-sheets they wore,
And with looks by sorrow clouded,
Frowning on that hostile shore.

3 On them gleamed the moon's wan lustre,
When the shade of Hosier brave
His pale bands was seen to muster,
Rising from their watery grave:
O'er the glimmering wave he hied him,
Where the Burford1 reared her sail,
With three thousand ghosts beside him,
And in groans did Vernon hail:

4 Heed, O heed, our fatal story,
I am Hosier's injured ghost,
You, who now have purchased glory
At this place where I was lost;
Though in Porto-Bello's ruin

You now triumph free from fears,
When
you think on our undoing,
You will mix your joy with tears.

5 'See these mournful spectres, sweeping
Ghastly o'er this hated wave,

Whose wan cheeks are stained with weeping;
These were English captains brave:
Mark those numbers pale and horrid,
Those were once my sailors bold,
Lo! each hangs his drooping forehead,
While his dismal tale is told.

1 The Burford:' Admiral Vernon's ship.

6 I, by twenty sail attended,

Did this Spanish town affright:
Nothing then its wealth defended
But my orders not to fight:
Oh! that in this rolling ocean
I had cast them with disdain,
And obeyed my heart's warm motion,

To have quelled the pride of Spain.

7 For resistance I could fear none,
But with twenty ships had done
What thou, brave and happy Vernon,
Hast achieved with six alone.
Then the Bastimentos never

Had our foul dishonour seen,

Nor the sea the sad receiver
Of this gallant train had been.

8 Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismaying,
And her galleons leading home,
Though condemned for disobeying,
I had met a traitor's doom;
To have fallen, my country crying,
He has played an English part,
Had been better far than dying
Of a grieved and broken heart.

9 Unrepining at thy glory,

Thy successful arms we hail;
But remember our sad story,
And let Hosier's wrongs prevail.
Sent in this foul clime to languish,
Think what thousands fell in vain,
Wasted with disease and anguish,

Not in glorious battle slain.