Whose setting beams with milder lustre shine.

Nor, Barbauld, shall my glowing heart re-
fuse

Its tribute to thy virtues, or thy muse;
This humble merit shall at least be mine,
The poet's chaplet for thy brow to twine;
My verse thy talents to the world shall teach,
And praise the genius it despairs to reach.

Yet what is wit, and what the poet's art?
Can genius shield the vulnerable heart?
Ah no! where bright imagination reigns,
The fine wrought spirit feels acuter pains;
Where glow exalted sense and taste refin'd,
There keener anguish rankles in the mind;
There, feeling is diffus'd through ev'ry part,
Thrills in each nerve, and lives in all the
heart;

And those whose gen'rous souls each tear would keep

From other's eyes, are born themselves to weep.

Can all the boasted pow'rs of wit and song, Of life one pang remove, one hour prolong? Fallacious hope! which daily truths deride; For you, alas! have wept, and Garrick dy'd! O shades of Hampton! witness, as I mourn, Could wit or song elude your fav'rite's urn? Though living virtue still your haunts endears,

Yet buried worth shall justify my tears. Who now with spirit keen, yet judgment cool,

The errors of my orphan muse shall rule? With keen acumen how his piercing eye, The fault conceal'd from vulgar view would spy!

While with a generous warmth he strove to hide,

Nay vindicate the fault his taste had spy'd.
So pleas'd could he detect a happy line
That he would fancy merit ev'n in mine.

His wit so pointed it ne'er miss'd its end, And so well temper'd it ne'er lost a friend; How his keen eye, quick mind, and ardent heart,

Impov'rish'd nature, and exhausted art,
A muse of fire has sung,* if muse could trace,
Or verse retrieve the evanescent grace !
How rival bards with rival statesmen strove,
Who most should gain his praise or win his
love!

Opposing parties to one point he drew,
Thus Tully's Atticus was Cæsar's too.

Tho' time his mellowing hand across has stole,

Soft'ning the tints of sorrow on the soul; The deep impression long my heart shall fill, And ev'ry fainter trace be perfect still. Forgive, my friend, if wounded memory melt,

You best can pardon who have deepest felt. You, who for Britain's hero and your own, The deadliest pang which rends the soul have known;

You, who have found how much the feeling heart

Shapes its own wound, and points itself the dart;

* See Mr. Sheridan's beautiful monody.
Admiral Boscawen.

You, who are call'd the varied loss to mourn;
You, who have clasp'd a son's untimely urn;
You, who from frequent fond experience feel
The wounds such minds receive can never
heal;

That grief a thousand entrances can find,
Where parts superior dignify the mind ;
Yet would you change that sense acute to
gain

A dear bought absence from the poignant pain;

Commuting ev'ry grief those feelings give In loveless, joyless apathy to live?

For though in souls where energies abound, Pain through its numerous

wound;

avenues can

Yet the same avenues are open still,
To casual blessings as to casual ill.
Nor is the trembling temper more awake
To every wound calamity can make,
Than is the finely fashion'd nerve alive
To ev'ry transport pleasure has to give.

Let not the vulgar read this pensive strain, Their jests the tender anguish would profane. Yet these some deem the happiest of their kind,

Whose low enjoyments never reach the mind; Who ne'er a pain but for themselves have known,

Who ne'er have felt a sorrow but their own : Who deem romantic ev'ry finer thought Conceiv'd by pity, or by friendship wrought; Whose insulated souls ne'er feel the pow'r Of gen'rous sympathy's extatic hour; Whose disconnected hearts ne'er taste the

You who have melted in bright glory's flame,

Or felt the grateful breath of well earn'd fame;

Or you, the chosen agents from above,
Whose bounty vindicates Almighty love;
You, who subdue the vain desire of show,
Not to accumulate but to bestow;

You, who the dreary haunts of sorrow seek, Raise the sunk heart, and flush the fading cheek;

You, who divide the joys and share the pains, When merit triumphs, or oppress'd complains ;

You, who with pensive Petrarch, love to

mourn,

Or weave the garland for Tibullus' urn; You, whose touch'd hearts with real sorrows swell,

Or feel, when genius paints those sorrows well,

Would you renounce such energies as these
For vulgar pleasures or for selfish ease?
Would you to 'scape the pain, the joy forego,
And miss the transport to avoid the wo?
Would you the sense of actual pity lose,
Or cease to share the mournings of the muse?
No, Greville,* no!-thy song, tho' steep'd in
tears,

Though all thy soul in all thy strain appears; Yet would'st thou all thy well sung anguish chuse,

And all th' inglorious peace thou begg'st refuse :

And while Discretion all our views should guide,

Beware, lest secret aims and ends she hide; Though midst the crowd of virtues, 'tis her part,

Like a firm sentinel-to guard the heart; Beware, lest Prudence 'self become unjust, Who never was deceiv'd, I would not trust; Prudence must never be Suspicion's slave, The World's wise man is more than half a knave.

And you, Boscawen, while you fondly melt, In raptures none but mothers ever felt; And as you view, prophetic, in your race, All Levison's sweetness, and all Beaufort's

grace;

Yet dread what dangers each lov'd child may share,

The youth, if valiant, or the maid, if fair;
You who bave felt, so frail is mortal joy!
That, while we clasp the phantom, we de-
stroy ;

That perils multiply as blessings flow,
That sorrows grafted on enjoyments grow;
That clouds impending dim our brightest
views,

That who have most to love have most to lose; Yet from these fair possessions would you part,

To shelter from contingent ills your heart? Would you forego the objects of your prayer To save the dangers of a distant care? Renounce the brightness op'ning to your view

For all the safety dulness ever knew?

* See her beautiful Ode to Indifference.

Would you consent, to shun the fears you prove

That they should merit less, or you less love; Yet while we claim the sympathy divine, Which makes, O man, the woes of others thine;

While her fair triumphs swell the modish page,

She drives the sterner virtues from the stage:
While Feeling boasts her ever tearful eye,
Fair Truth, firm Faith, and manly Justice fly:
Justice, prime good! from whose prolific law,
All worth, all virtue, their strong essence
draw;

Justice, a grace quite obsolete we hold,
The feign'd Astrea of an age of gold:
The sterling attribute we scarcely own,
While spurious Candour fills the vacant
throne.

Sweet Sensibility! Thou secret pow'r
Who shed'st thy gifts upon the natal hour,
Like fairy favours; Art can never seize,
Nor Affectation catch thy power to please:
Thy subtile essence still eludes the chains
Of Definition, and defeats her pains.
Sweet Sensibility! thou keen delight!
Unprompted moral! sudden sense of right!
Perception exquisite! fair Virtue's seed!
Thou quick precursor of the lib'ral deed!
Thou hasty conscience! reason's blushing

morn!

If from the spider's snare they snatch a fly; There are, whose well sung plaints each breast inflame,

And break all hearts-but his from whom they came!

He, scorning life's low duties to attend, Writes odes on friendship, while he cheats his friend.

Of jails and punishments he grieves to hear,
And pensions 'prison'd virtue with a tear;
While unpaid bills his creditor presents,
And ruin'd innocence his crime laments.
Not so the tender moralist of Tweed,
His gen'rous man of feeling feels indeed.

O Love divine! sole source of charity! More dear one genuine deed perform'd for thee,

Than all the periods Feeling e'er could turn,
Than all thy touching page, perverted
Sterne!

Not that by deeds alone this love's express'd,
If so the affluent only were the bless'd;
One silent wish, one pray'r, one soothing
word,

The page of mercy shall, well pleas'd record;
One soul-felt sigh by pow'rless pity given,
Accepted incense! shall ascend to heav'n!
Since trifles make the sum of human things,
And half our misery from our foibles springs;
Since life's best joys consist in peace and

ease,

And though but few can serve, yet all may please;

O let th' ungentle spirit learn from hence,
A small unkindness is a great offence.
To spread large bounties, though we wish in
vain,

Yet all may shun the guilt of giving pain: To bless mankind with tides of flowing wealth,

With rank to grace them, or to crown with| health,

Our little lot denies; yet lib'ral still,
Heav'n gives its counterpoise to ev'ry ill,
Nor let us murmur at our stinted pow'rs,
When kindness, love, and concord, may be

ours.

The gift of minist'ring to other's case,
To all her sons impartial she decrees;
The gentle offices of patient love,
Beyond all flattery, and all price above;
The mild forbearance at a brother's fault,
The angry word suppress'd, the taunting
thought;

Subduing and subdu'd, the petty strife,
Which clouds the colour of domestic life;
The sober comfort, all the peace which
springs,

From the large aggregate of little things; On these small cares of daughter, wife, or friend,

The almost sacred joys of home depend:
There Sensibility, thou best may'st reign,
Home is thy true legitimate domain.

A solitary bliss thou ne'er could'st find,

Thy joys with those thou lov'st are intertwin'd;

And he whose helpless tenderness removes The rankling thorn which wounds the breast

he loves,

Smooths not another's rugged path alone,

But clears th' obstruction which impedes his

own.

The hint malevolent, the look oblique, The obvious satire, or implied dislike; The sneer equivocal, the harsh reply, And all the cruel language of the eye; The artful injury, whose venom'd dart, Scarce wounds the hearing, while it stabs the heart;

The guarded phrase, whose meaning kills, yet told

The list'ner wonders, how you thought it cold;

Small slights, neglect, unmix'd perhaps with hate,

Make up in number what they want in weight.

These, and a thousand griefs minute as these,
Corrode our comfort and destroy our ease.
As Feeling tends to good or leans to ill,
It gives fresh force to vice or principle;
'Tis not a gift peculiar to the good,
'Tis often but the virtue of the blood:
And what would seem compassion's moral
flow,

Is but a circulation swift or slow :
But to divert it to its proper course,
There wisdom's pow'r appears, there reason's
force:

If ill-directed it pursue the wrong,
It adds new strength to what before was
strong;

Breaks out in wild irregular desires,
Disorder'd passions, and illicit fires;
Without, deforms the man, depraves within,
And makes the work of God the slave of sin.
But if Religion's bias rule the soul,
Then Sensibility exalts the whole;
Sheds its sweet sunshine on the moral part,
Nor wastes on fancy what should warm the
heart.

Cold and inert the mental pow'rs would lie,
Without this quick'ning spark of Deity.
To melt the rich materials from the mine,
To bid the mass of intellect refine,
To bend the firm, to animate the cold,
And heav'n's own image stamp on Nature's
gold;

To give immortal mind its finest tone,
Oh, Sensibility! is all thy own.

This is th' eternal flame which lights and

THERE was a young and valiant knight,

Sir ELDRED was his name,

And never did a worthier wight
The rank of knighthood claim.

Not Etna's entrails fiercer shake,

Or Scythia's tempests roar.

As when in summer's sweetest day To fan the fragant morn,

To feed the neighbouring wood,

The ancient glory of the north,

Sir Eldred's castle stood.

The knight was rich as knight might be
In patrimonial wealth;

And rich in nature's gifts was he,

In youth, and strength, and health.
He did not think, as some have thought,
Whom honour never crown'd,
The fame a father dearly bought,
Could make the son renown'd.
He better thought, a noble sire,
Who gallant deeds had done,
To deeds of hardihood should fire
A brave and gallant son.
The fairest ancestry on earth
Without desert is poor;
And ev'ry deed of former worth

Is but a claim for more.
Sir Eldred's heart was ever kind,
Alive to pity's call;

A crowd of virtues grac'd his mind,
He lov'd and felt for all.

When merit raised the sufferer's name,
He show'r'd his bounty then;

And those who could not prove that claim,
He succour'd still as men.

But sacred truth the muse compels
His errors to impart ;
And yet the muse reluctant tells

The fault of Eldred's he rt.
Though mild and soft as infant love

His fond affections melt;
Though all that kindest spirits prove
Sir Eldred keenly felt:
Yet if the passions storm'd his soul,
By jealousy led on;

The fierce resentment scorn'd control,
And bore his virtues down.

Not Thule's waves so widely break
To drown the northern shore;

O'er fields of ripen'd corn;
Sudden the lightning's blast descends,
Deforms the ravag'd fields;

At once the various ruin blends,
And all resistless yields

But when, to clear his stormy breast,
The sun of reason shone,
And ebbing passions sunk to rest,

And show'd what rage had done:
O then what anguish he betray'd!

His shame how deep, how true!
He view'd the waste his rage had made,
And shudder'd at the view.
The meek-ey'd dawn, in saffron robe,
Proclaim'd the op'ning day,

Up rose the sun to gild the globe,
And hail the new-born May;
The birds their vernal notes repeat,
And glad the thick'ning grove ;
And feather'd partners fondly greet
With many a song of love:
When pious Eldred early rose
The Lord of all to hail;

Who life with all its gifts bestows,

Whose mercies never fail!

That done-he left his woodland glade,
And journey'd far away;

He lov'd to court the distant shade,
And through the lone vale stray.
Within the bosom of a wood,

By circling hills embrac'd,
A little, modest mansion stood,
Built by the hand of taste;
While many a prouder castle fell,
This safely did endure;

The house where guardian virtues dwell
Is sacred and secure.

Of eglantine an humble fence

Around the mansion stood,

Which serv'd at once to charm the sense, And screen an infant wood.