so well to be restored to modern orthography, that no scruple is made in adopting it in the following specimen selected from ELLA, a drama attributed by Chatterton to his imaginary Rowley, and thus supposed to be written long before any drama had appeared in the language.

THE MINSTREL'S SONG IN ELLA.

O! SING unto my roundelay,

O! drop the briny tear with me,

Dance no more on holiday,

Like a running river be;

For my love's dead,

Gone to his deathbed,

All under the willow-tree.

Black his hair as winter night,
White his throat as summer snow,
Red his cheek as morning light,
Cold he lies in the grave below:
My love is dead, &c.

Sweet his tongue as throstle's note,
Quick in dance as thought was he,
Deft his tabor, cudgel stout,
O! he lies by the willow-tree:
My love is dead, &c.

Hark! the raven flaps his wing
In the brier'd dell below;

Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing
To the nightmares as they go:
My love is dead, &c.

See! the white moon shines on high;
Whiter is my true love's shroud;
Whiter than the morning sky,

Whiter than the evening cloud :
My love is dead, &c.

Here upon my true love's grave
Shall the garen (a) flowers be laid;
Not one holy saint to save
All the sorrows of a maid:
My love is dead, &c.

Come with acorn-cup and thorn,
Drain my heartis blood away;
Life and all its goods I scorn,
Dance by night or feast by day:
My love is dead, &c.

Water-witches crown'd with reeds,
Bear me to your deadly tide.

I die! I come! my true love waits:
Thus the damsel spoke, and died.

(a) Bright, garish.

WILLIAM MASON.

BORN 1725-DIED 1797.

MASON was the son of the vicar of St Trinity, in the EastRiding of York. He studied at Cambridge, obtained orders, and in 1754 was appointed one of the king's chaplains. Mason's tragedies of ELFRIDA and CARACTACUS have been much admired; nor were his attainments in the fine arts confined to poetry. On obtaining a prebend in York cathedral, Mason married. His epitaph on his wife, who did not survive her marriage above two years, bears testimony to the tenderness of his affections and the elegance of his mind.

Mason was long the favourite and confidential friend of Gray, who left him all his books and MSS., with a legacy of L.500. He was a firm and consistent Whig in politics, and often took a more active part in public affairs than men of letters generally assume.

ODE FROM CARACTACUS.

MONA on Snowdon calls:

Hear, thou king of mountains, hear;

Hark, she speaks from all her strings:
Hark, her loudest echo rings;

King of mountains, bend thine ear:

Send thy spirits, send them soon,
Now, when midnight and the moon

Meet upon thy front of snow:

See, their gold and ebon rod,
Where the sober sisters nod,

And greet in whispers sage and slow.

:

Snowdon, mark! 'tis magic's hour;
Now the mutter'd spell hath power;
Power to rend thy ribs of rock,

And burst thy base with thunder's shock:
But to thee no ruder spell

Shall Mona use, than those that dwell

In music's secret cells, and lie

Steep'd in the stream of harmony.

Snowdon has heard the strain: Hark, amid the wondering grove Other harpings answer clear, Other voices meet our ear, Pinions flutter, shadows move, Busy murmurs hum around,

Rustling vestments brush the ground;
Round and round, and round they go,
Through the twilight, through the shade,
Mount the oak's majestic head,

And gild the tufted misletoe.
Cease, ye glittering race of light,

Close your wings, and check your flight;
Here, arranged in order due,

Spread your robes of saffron hue;

For, lo! with more than mortal fire,
Mighty Mador smites the lyre:
Hark, he sweeps the master-strings;
Listen all-

EPITAPH ON MRS MASON,

IN THE CATHEDRAL OF BRISTOL.

TAKE, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear: Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave:

To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care
Her faded form; she bow'd to taste the wave,
And died! Does youth, does beauty, read the
line?

Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm? Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine; Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.

Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee;
Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move;
And if so fair, from vanity as free;

As firm in friendship, and as fond in love. Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, ('Twas even to thee) yet the dread path once trod,

Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,

And bids "the pure in heart behold their God."

THOMAS WARTON.

BORN 1728-DIED 1790.

THE historian of English poetry was descended of a respect

able Yorkshire family..

Both his father and brothers
Warton entered Oxford at the

were poets of some note.
age of sixteen, obtained a degree, and soon afterwards a
fellowship, and for forty-seven years continued a distin-
guished member of the university. His lettered leisure
was entirely devoted to poetry and antiquities; and his
Observations on the Faery Queen and History of Poetry