THE father of WILLIAM CLIFFTON was a wealthy member of the society of Friends, in Philadelphia. The poet, from his childhood, had little physical strength, and was generally a sufferer from disease; but his mind was vigorous and carefully educated, and had he lived to a mature age, he would probably have won an enduring reputation as an author. His life was marked by few incidents. He made himself acquainted with the classical studies pursued in the universities, and with music, painting, and such field-sports as he supposed he could indulge in with most advantage to his health. He was considered an amiable and accomplished gentleman, and his society was courted alike by

the fashionable and the learned. He died in December, 1799, in the twenty-seventh year of his age.

The poetry of CLIFFTON has more energy of thought and diction, and is generally more correct and harmonious, than any which had been previously written in this country. Much of it is satirical, and relates to persons and events of the period in which he lived; and the small volume of his writings published after his death doubtless contains some pieces which would have been excluded from an edition prepared by himself, for this reason, and because they were unfinished and not originally intended to meet the eye of the world.

TO WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ.*

In these cold shades, beneath these shifting skies, Where Fancy sickens, and where Genius dies; Where few and feeble are the muse's strains, And no fine frenzy riots in the veins, There still are found a few to whom belong The fire of virtue and the soul of song; Whose kindling ardour still can wake the strings, When learning triumphs, and when GIFFORD Sings. To thee the lowliest bard his tribute pays, His little wild-flower to thy wreath conveys; Pleased, if permitted round thy name to bloom, To boast one effort rescued from the tomb.

While this delirious age enchanted seems With hectic Fancy's desultory dreams; While wearing fast away is every trace Of Grecian vigour, and of Roman grace, With fond delight, we yet one bard behold, As Horace polish'd, and as Perseus bold, Reclaim the art, assert the muse divine, And drive obtrusive dulness from the shrine. Since that great day which saw the Tablet rise, A thinking block, and whisper to the eyes, No time has been that touch'd the muse so near, No Age when Learning had so much to fear, As now, when love-lorn ladies light verse frame, And every rebus-weaver talks of Fame.

When Truth in classic majesty appear'd, And Greece, on high, the dome of science rear'd, Patience and perseverance, care and pain Alone the steep, the rough ascent could gain: None but the great the sun-clad summit found; The weak were baffled, and the strong were crown'd.

Prefixed to WILLIAM COBBETT's edition of the "Baviad and Mæviad," published in Philadelphia, in 1799.

The tardy transcript's high-wrought page confined
To one pursuit the undivided mind.
No venal critic fatten'd on the trade;
Books for delight, and not for sale were made;
Then shone, superior, in the realms of thought,
The chief who govern'd, and the sage who taught:
The drama then with deathless bays was wreath'd,
The statue quicken'd, and the canvass breathed.
The poet, then, with unresisted art,

Sway'd every impulse of the captive heart.
Touch'd with a beam of Heaven's creative mind,
His spirit kindled, and his taste refined:
Incessant toil inform'd his rising youth;
Thought grew to thought, and truth attracted truth,
Till, all complete, his perfect soul display'd
Some bloom of genius which could never fade.
So the sage oak, to Nature's mandate true,
Advanced but slow, and strengthen'd as it grew!
But when, at length, (full many a season o'er,)
Its virile head, in pride, aloft it bore;
When steadfast were its roots, and sound its heart,
It bade defiance to the insect's art,
And, storm and time resisting, still remains
The never-dying glory of the plains.

Then, if some thoughtless BAVIUS dared appear,
Short was his date, and limited his sphere;
He could but please the changeling mob a day,
Then, like his noxious labours, pass away:
So, near a forest tall, some worthless flower
Enjoys the triumph of its gaudy hour,
Scatters its little poison through the skies,
Then droops its empty, hated head, and dies.

Still, as from famed Ilyssus' classic shore, To Mincius' banks, the muse her laurel bore, The sacred plant to hands divine was given, And deathless MARO nursed the boon of Heaven. Exalted bard! to hear thy gentler voice, The valleys listen, and their swains rejoice;

But when, on some wild mountain's awful form,
We hear thy spirit chanting to the storm,
Of battling chiefs, and armies laid in gore,
We rage, we sigh, we wonder, and adore.
Thus Rome with Greece in rival splendour shone,
But claim'd immortal satire for her own;
While HORACE pierced, full oft, the wanton breast
With sportive censure, and resistless jest;
And that Etrurian, whose indignant lay
Thy kindred genius can so well display,

With many a well-aim'd thought, and pointed line,
Drove the bold villain from his black design.
For, as those mighty masters of the lyre,
With temper'd dignity, or quenchless ire,
Through all the various paths of science trod,
Their school was NATURE and their teacher Gon.
Nor did the muse decline till, o'er her head,
The savage tempest of the north was spread;
Till arm'd with desolation's bolt it came,
And wrapp'd her temple in funereal flame.

But soon the arts once more a dawn diffuse,
And DANTE hail'd it with his morning muse;
PETRARCH and BOCCACE join'd the choral lay,
And Arno glisten'd with returning day.
Thus science rose; and, all her troubles pass'd,
She hoped a steady, tranquil reign at last;
But FAUSTUS came: (indulge the painful thought,)
Were not his countless volumes dearly bought?
For, while to every clime and class they flew,
Their worth diminish'd as their numbers grew.
Some pressman, rich in HOMER's glowing page,
Could give ten epics to one wondering age;
A single thought supplied the great design,
And clouds of Iliads spread from every line.
Nor HOMER's glowing page, nor VIRGIL's fire
Could one lone breast with equal flame inspire,
But, lost in books, irregular and wild,
The poet wonder'd, and the critic smiled:
The friendly smile, a bulkier work repays;
For fools will print, while greater fools will praise.
Touch'd with the mania, now, what millions rage
To shine the laureat blockheads of the age.
The dire contagion creeps through every grade;
Girls, coxcombs, peers, and patriots drive the trade:
And e'en the hind, his fruitful fields forgot,
For rhyme and misery leaves his wife and cot.
Ere to his breast the wasteful mischief spread,
Content and plenty cheer'd his little shed;
And, while no thoughts of state perplex'd his mind,
His harvests ripening, and Pastora kind,

He laugh'd at toil, with health and vigour bless'd,
For days of labour brought their nights of rest:
But now in rags, ambitious for a name,
The fool of faction, and the dupe of fame,
His conscience haunts him with his guilty life,
His starving children, and his ruin'd wife.
Thus swarming wits, of all materials made,
Their Gothic hands on social quiet laid,
And, as they rave, unmindful of the storm,
Call lust, refinement; anarchy, reform.

No love to foster, no dear friend to wrong,
Wild as the mountain flood, they drive along:
And sweep, remorseless, every social bloom
To the dark level of an endless tomb.

By arms assail'd we still can arms oppose,
And rescue learning from her brutal foes;
But when those foes to friendship make pretence,
And tempt the judgment with the baits of sense,
Carouse with passion, laugh at Gon's control,
And sack the little empire of the soul,
What warning voice can save? Alas! 'tis o'er,
The age of virtue will return no more;
The doating world, its manly vigour flown,
Wanders in mind, and dreams on folly's throne.
Come then, sweet bard, again the cause defend,
Be still the muses' and religion's friend;
Again the banner of thy wrath display,
And save the world from DARWIN's tinsel lay.
A soul like thine no listless pause should know;
Truth bids thee strike, and virtue guides the blow.
From every conquest still more dreadful come,
Till dulness fly, and folly's self be dumb.

MARY WILL SMILE.

THE morn was fresh, and pure the gale,
When MARY, from her cot a rover,
Pluck'd many a wild rose of the vale
To bind the temples of her lover.
As near his little farm she stray'd,
Where birds of love were ever pairing,
She saw her WILLIAM in the shade,

The arms of ruthless war preparing. "Though now," he cried, "I seek the hostile plain, MARY shall smile, and all be fair again."

She seized his hand, and "Ah!" she cried, "Wilt thou, to camps and war a stranger, Desert thy MARY'S faithful side,

And bare thy life to every danger? Yet, go, brave youth! to arms away! My maiden hands for fight shall dress thee, And when the drum beats far away,

I'll drop a silent tear, and bless thee. Return'd with honour, from the hostile plain, MARY will smile, and all be fair again.

"The bugles through the forest wind, The woodland soldiers call to battle: Be some protecting angel kind,

And guard thy life when cannons rattle!" She sung-and as the rose appears

In sunshine, when the storm is over, A smile beam'd sweetly through her tearsThe blush of promise to her lover. Return'd in triumph from the hostile plain, All shall be fair, and MARY smile again.

ALTHOUGH this writer is now rarely mentioned, by the organs of public opinion in New England he was once ranked among the great masters of English verse; and it was believed that his reputation would endure as long as the language in which he wrote. The absurd estimate of his abilities shows the wretched condition of taste and criticism in his time, and perhaps caused the faults in his later works which have won for them their early oblivion.

ROBERT TREAT PAINE, junior,* was born at Taunton, Massachusetts, on the ninth of December, 1773. His father, an eminent lawyer, held many honourable offices under the state and national governments, and was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The family having removed to Boston, when he was about seven years old, the subject of this memoir received his early education in that city, and entered Harvard University in 1788. His career here was brilliant and honourable; no member of his class was so familiar with the ancient languages, or with elegant English literature; and his biographer assures us that he was personally popular among his classmates and the officers of the university. When he was graduated, "he was as much distinguished for the opening virtues of his heart, as for the vivacity of his wit, the vigour of his imagination, and the variety of his knowledge. A liberality of sentiment and a contempt of selfishness are usual concomitants, and in him were striking characteristics. Urbanity of manners and a delicacy of feeling imparted a charm to his benignant temper and social disposition."

While in college he had won many praises by his poetical "exercises," and on the completion of his education he was anxious to devote himself to literature as a profession. His father, a man of singular austerity, had marked out for him a different career, and obtained for him a clerkship in a mercantile house in Boston. But he was in no way fitted for the successful prosecution of commerce; and after endeavouring for a few months to apply himself to business, he abandoned the counting-room, and determined to rely on his pen for the means of living. In 1794 he established the "Federal Orrery," a political and literary gazette, and conducted it two years, but without industry or discretion, and therefore without profit. Soon after leaving the university, he had become a constant visiter of the theatre, then recently established in Boston. His intimacy with persons connected with the stage led to his marriage with an

*He was originally called THOMAS PAINE; but on the death of an elder brother, in 1801, his name was changed by an act of the Massachussetts legislature to that of his father.

actress, and this to his exclusion from fashionable society, and a disagreement with his father, which lasted until his death.

He was destitute of true courage, and of that kind of pride which arises from a consciousness of integrity and worth. When, therefore, he found himself unpopular with the town, he no longer endeavoured to deserve regard; but neglected his personal appearance, became intemperate, and abandoned himself to indolence. The office of "master of ceremonies" in the theatre, an anomalous station, created for his benefit, still yielded him a moderate income, and notwithstanding the irregularity of his habits, he never exerted his poetical abilities without success. For his poems

and other productions he obtained prices unparal leled in this country, and rarely equalled by the rewards of the most popular European authors. For the Invention of Letters," written at the request of the President of Harvard University, he received fifteen hundred dollars, or more than five dollars a line. "The Ruling Passion," a poem recited before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, was little less profitable; and he was paid seven hundred and fifty dollars for a song of half-a-dozen stanzas, entitled "Adams and Liberty."

His habits, in the sunshine, gradually improved, and his friends who adhered to him endeavoured to wean him from the wine-cup, and to persuade him to study the law, and establish himself in an honourable position in society. They were for a time successful; he entered the office of the Honourable THEOPHILUS PARSONS, of Newburyport; applied himself diligently to his studies; was admitted to the bar, and became a popular advocate. No lawyer ever commenced business with more brilliant prospects; but his indolence and recklessness returned; his business was neglected; his reputation decayed; and, broken down and disheartened by poverty, disease, and the neglect of his old associates, the evening of his life presented a melancholy contrast to its morning, when every sign gave promise of a bright career. In his last years, says his biographer, "without a library, wandering from place to place, frequently uncertain whence or whether he could procure a meal, his thirst for knowledge astonishingly increased; neither sickness nor penury abated his love of books and instructive conversation." He died in "an attic chamber of his father's house," on the eleventh of November, 1811, in the thirtyeighth year of his age.

Dr. JOHNSON said of DRYDEN, of whom PAINE was a servile but unsuccessful imitator, that "his delight was in wild and daring sallies of sentiment, in the irregular and eccentric violence of wit;" that he "delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning, where light and darkness begin to min

gle; to approach the precipice of absurdity, and hover over the abyss of unideal vacancy." The censure is more applicable to the copy than the original. There was no freshness in PAINE's writings; his subjects, his characters, his thoughts, were all commonplace and familiar. His mind was fashioned by books, and not by converse with the world. He had a brilliant fancy, and a singular command of language; but he was never content to be simple and natural. He endeavoured to be magnificent and striking; he was perpetually searching for conceits and extravagances; and in the multiplicity of his illustrations and ornaments, he was unintelligible and tawdry. From no other writer could so many instances of the false sublime be selected. He never spoke to the heart in its own language.

PAINE wrote with remarkable facility. It is related of him by his biographers, that he had finished “Adams and Liberty," and exhibited it to some gentlemen at the house of a friend. His host pronounced it imperfect, as the name of WASHINGTON was omitted, and declared that he should not approach the sideboard, on which bottles of wine had just been placed, until he had written an additional stanza. The poet mused a moment, called

for a pen, and wrote the following lines, which are, perhaps, the best in the song:

Should the tempest of war overshadow our land,

Its bolts could ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder; For, unmoved, at its portal would Washington stand; And repulse, with his breast, the assaults of the thunder! His sword, from the sleep

Of its scabbard would leap,
And conduct, with its point, every flash to the deep!
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.

He had agreed to write the "opening address," on the rebuilding of the Boston Theatre, in 1798. HODGKINSON, the manager, called on him in the evening, before it was to be delivered, and upbraided him for his negligence; the first line of it being yet unwritten. "Pray, do not be angry," said PAINE, who was dining with some literary friends; "Sit down and take a glass of wine." No, sir," replied the manager; "when you begin to write, I will begin to drink." PAINE took his pen, at a side-table, and in two or three hours finished the address, which is one of the best he ever wrote.

66

In quoting from the works of PAINE, I have endeavoured to present not only the best passages, but such as are most characteristic of his manner and genius.

ADAMS AND LIBERTY.

YE sons of Columbia, who bravely have fought For those rights, which unstain'd from your sires had descended,

May you long taste the blessings your valour has bought,

And your sons reap the soil which their fathers defended.

Mid the reign of mild Peace
May your nation increase,

With the glory of Rome, and the wisdom of Greece;
And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls
its waves.

In a clime, whose rich vales feed the marts of the world,

Whose shores are unshaken by Europe's commotion,

The trident of commerce should never be hurl'd,
To incense the legitimate powers of the ocean.
But should pirates invade,
Though in thunder array'd,
Let your cannon declare the free charter of trade.
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.

The fame of our arms, of our laws the mild sway,
Had justly ennobled our nation in story,
"Till the dark clouds of faction obscured our young
day,

And enveloped the sun of American glory.
But let traitors be told,

Who their country have sold,

And barter'd their God for his image in gold,
That ne'er will the sons, &c.

While France her huge limbs bathes recumbent in blood,

And society's base threats with wide dissolution; May Peace, like the dove who return'd from the flood,

Find an ark of abode in our mild constitution. But though peace is our aim,

Yet the boon we disclaim,

If bought by our sovereignty, justice, or fame.
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.

"T is the fire of the flint each American warms: Let Rome's haughty victors beware of collision; Let them bring all the vassals of Europe in arms; We're a world by ourselves, and disdain a division.

While, with patriot pride,

To our laws we're allied,
No foe can subdue us, no faction divide.
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.

Our mountains are crowned with imperial oak,
Whose roots, like our liberties, ages have

nourish'd;

But long e'er our nation submits to the yoke,
Not a tree shall be left on the field where it
flourish'd.

Should invasion impend,
Every grove would descend

From the hill-tops they shaded, our shores to defend.

For ne'er shall the sons, &c.

Let our patriots destroy Anarch's pestilent worm; Lest our liberty's growth should be checked by

corrosion;

Then let clouds thicken round us; we heed not the storm;

Our realm fears no shock, but the earth's own explosion.

Foes assail us in vain,

Though their fleets bridge the main,

For our altars and laws with our lives we'll maintain.

For ne'er shall the sons, &c.

Should the tempest of war overshadow our land, Its bolts could ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder;

For, unmoved, at its portal would WASHINGTON stand,

And repulse, with his breast, the assaults of the thunder!

His sword, from the sleep

Of its scabbard would leap,

And conduct, with its point, every flash to the deep!
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.

Let fame to the world sound America's voice;
No intrigues can her sons from their government

sever;

Her pride is her ADAMS; her laws are his choice,
And shall flourish, till Liberty slumbers forever.
Then unite heart and hand,
Like LEONIDAS' band,

And swear to the God of the ocean and land,
That ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls
its waves.

FROM A "MONODY ON THE DEATH OF SIR JOHN MOORE."

LAMENTED MOORE! how loved, how graced wert thou!

What air majestic dazzled on thy brow!
By genius raised, and by ambition fired,
To die distinguish'd, as to live admired;
In battle brilliant, as in council grave;
Stern to encounter, but humane to save;
Virtue and valour in thy bosom strove
Which most should claim our homage or our love.
In thee they flow'd without the pulse of art,
The throbbing life-blood of thy fervid heart;
While, warm from nature, panting honour drew
That vital instinct Heaven imparts to few;
That pride of arms, which prompts the brave design,
That grace of soul, which makes the brave divine!
His heart elate, with modest valour bold,
Beat with fond rage, to vie with chiefs of old.
Great by resolve, yet by example warm'd,
Himself the model of his glory form'd.
A glowing trait from every chief he caught;
He paused like FABIUS, and like CESAR fought.
His ardent hope surveyed the heights of fame,
Deep on its rocks to grave a soldier's name;
And o'er its cliffs to bid the banner wave,
A Briton fights, to conquer and to save.

On martial ground, the school of heroes' taught, He studied battles, where campaigns were fought. By science led, he traced each scene of fame, Where war had left no stone without a name.

Hills, streams, and plains bore one extended chart
Of warriors' deeds, and show'd of arms the art;
The tactic canvass all its lore revealed,
To seize the moment, and dispose the field.
Here, still and desperate, near the midnight pass,
Couch'd ambush listen'd in the deep morass;
There, skill, opposed by fortune, shaped its way,
With prompt decision, and with firm array;
Here paused the fight, and there the contest raved,
A squadron routed, or an empire saved!

Inspired on fields, with trophied interest graced,
He sigh'd for glory, where he mused from taste.
For high emprise his dazzling helm was plumed,
And all the polish'd patriot-hero bloom'd.
Arm'd as he strode, his glorying country saw
That fame was virtue, and ambition law;
In him beheld, with fond delight, conspire
Her MARLBOROUGH's fortune and her SIDNEY'S
fire.

Like Calvi's rock, with clefts abrupt deformed, His path to fame toil'd up the breach he storm'd; Till o'er the clouds the victor chief was seen, Sublime in terror, and in height serene.

His equal mind so well could triumph greet, He gave to conquest charms that soothed defeat. The battle done, his brow, with thought o'ercast, Benign as Mercy, smiled on perils past. The death-choak'd fosse, the batter'd wall, inspired A sense, that sought him, from the field retired. Suspiring Pity touch'd that godlike heart, To which no peril could dismay impart; And melting pearls in that stern eye could shine, That lighten'd courage down the thundering line. So mounts the sea-bird in the boreal sky, And sits where steeps in beetling ruin lie; Though warring whirlwinds curl the Norway seas, And the rocks tremble, and the torrents freeze; Yet is the fleece, by beauty's bosom press'd, The down, that warms the storm-beat eider's breast; Mid floods of frost, where Winter smites the deep, Are fledged the plumes, on which the Graces sleep. In vain thy cliffs, Hispania, lift the sky, Where CESAR's eagles never dared to fly! To rude and sudden arms while Freedom springs, NAPOLEON'S legions mount on bolder wings. In vain thy sons their steely nerves oppose, Bare to the rage of tempests and of foes; In vain, with naked breast, the storm defy Of furious battle, and of piercing sky; Five waning reigns had mark'd, in long decay, The gloomy glory of thy setting day; While bigot power, with dark and dire disgrace, Oppress'd the valour of thy gallant race. No martial phalanx, led by veteran art, Combined thy vigour, or confirm'd thy heart: Thy bands dispersed, like Rome in wild defeat, Fled to the mountains, to entrench retreat.

O'er hill, or vale, where'er thy sky descends, The pomp of hostile chivalry extends. High o'er thy brow the giant glaive is rear'd, Deep in the wounds of bleeding nations smear'd. Ere Britain's shield could catch th' impending blade, Thy helm was shatter'd, and thy arm dismay'd. Yet, while the falchion fell, thy brave ally Cheer'd, with a blaze of mail, thy closing eye;