The warrior soul of young Themistocles
To the fair Teian gave the idle hour,
Oft sooth'd the toils of war with am'rous ease,
And held short dalliance in the Attic bower.
The bright effulgence of her charms

To deeds of glory urg'd her warlike lord,
Beat in his active bosom love's alarms,

And added force to his descending sword: Inspir'd the feats that set pale Europe free, That Greece and Glory saw, and XERXES blush'd

to see.

VII.

BRITONS, if Freedom in your happy land
E'er deign'd to fix her delegated stand,
Let no base slave of power her reign molest,
Or chase to happier realms th' illustrious guest.
Oh! be each mind with native virtue fir'd,
Be ev'ry breast with patriot worth inspir'd;
Nor meanly crouch for aid to foreign powers,
To shield from Gallic arms the British towers.
Not so the warlike HARRY's conquering lance
Planted his banners in the heart of France;
Not so the British lion learn'd to roar
With wasteful rage along the Norman shore;
No foreign power was then implor'd,
When royal EDWARD led the bold campaign,
And the Boy flesh'd his maiden sword
O'er Cressy's memorable plain.
Dare to be Men; and let the glowing charms
Of British beauties aid the Briton's arms,
And when, by Love and Liberty led on,
Your trusty swords, o'er which fair Victory
Sits smiling, shall your injur'd country free,
Wrest the drawn dagger from Oppression's hand,
And give blythe Peace her olive wand.

Oh, then cry hail on Albion's happy soil!
Let festive Mirth the genial hours employ,
In days of pleasant toil,

And nights of virtuous joy.

Then whilst the coy-one's grace to win,
In some sequester'd arbour's shade
Her artist-hand in idle hour had made,

And deck'd with vernal flowers, and twisted
eglantine,

You count the perilous danger of the war, Your wounds receiv'd, your trophies won; How will her tender bosom pant with fear! O'er the sad tale she drops a tear, And breathes a sigh for ev'ry scar. Till sinking on her hero's breast, With pity and with love oppress'd; Her melting eyes, her rising blushes yield, To crown with virtuous love the labours of the field.*

ODE TO CONTENTMENT.

Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine Musas
Ducit, et immemores non sinit esse sui.

I.

Divine Contentment! cottage-born,
Do thou inspire my lay,

Let no vain wish, no thought forlorn,
Disturb the calm, the peaceful day.
Forget'st thou when we wander'd o'er
The sylvan BELA's sedgy shore,

Or rang'd the woodland wilds along?
How oft on HERCLAY'S mountains high,
We've met the morning's purple eye,
Delay'd by many a song.

II.

From these delights by Fortune led,
To busy life and crowds confin'd;
At once each golden pleasure fled,

Divine CONTENT was left behind.
Yet could these eyes once more survey
The comely fair in mantle grey,

Her polish'd brow, her peaceful eye,
Where'er the goddess deigns to dwell,
In village cot or hermit's cell,

With her I'd live and die.

* Grand Mag. for May 1758, pp. 248-250.

III.

Ah, where is now each image gay
The hand of fairy FANCY wove,
Of painted springs, Elysian day,
The sparkling rill, the blooming grove?
Cease, cruel Memory! think no more
Of scenes which lost I now deplore,
Abandon'd wild to care and woe;
With loss of EDEN's peaceful side,
Eternal grief and pain betide

The vain desire to know.t

LETTERS

BETWEEN Dr. JAMES GRAINGER and the Rev. THOMAS

"DEAR SIR,

PERCY.

Walbrook, Oct. 22, 1756.

"Your agreeable Letter I received some time ago, and should sooner have acknowledged the favour, had I not determined to have sent you some intelligence of the best Portuguese authors, along with my thanks. But although I have made some inquiry into that affair, and intend not to desist till I have picked up something, at present I can only inform you that I have been baffled in my search. Most of the Londoners who understand the Portuguese were more intent, when in that country, upon six-thirty's than upon Camoens, and know more of the privileges granted to the British factory at Lisbon than of their laws of the drama or epic. However, I do not despair; there is a friend of mine, a British subject, born at Oporto, who, I expect, will be able to afford me some eclaircissement. He has some talents, and I think has read something beside the Book of Rates.

"In a literary intercourse, such as I hope ours shall be, all ceremony must be discarded; there can be no pleasure where correspondents stand upon punctilios. I shall write you as often as I find myself in a humour; and if you intrust me with any of your poetical or other produc

"A river near where the author was born." The writer of this Ode appears to have been a Cumberland man. It is somewhat in the manner of Akenside.

↑ Grand Mag. June, 1758, p. 302.

tions, you may depend upon my sincerity, however my judgment may be called in question. In return for this I expect a cessation of compliments, and as frequent letters as you think proper. We Cits are awkward at complimenting; and I am not willing to expose my incapacity that way, even to my friend. So no more of Indian shells, &c. This scrawl will convince you I am no ways entitled to what you say.

"The playhouses opened some time ago. I think they tell me that Miss Bellamy is dead, and that Mrs. Cibber is recovered. Miss Pritchard has appeared with applause in the character of Juliet. She comes upon the stage much against her mother's inclination. I have not seen her yet, so I cannot prognosticate her fate. She has had every help, but, I am told, she wants sensibility. A week or two ago I laughed heartily at The Miser. Shuter did his part to admiration; I forgot the actor in the character.*

"Although I seldom saunter into the Green Room, I now and then hear a little of the theatrical secrets; and, if my intelligence is true, the town will be fed with no better fare this winter than it was the last. They speak of some tragedies; but I am tired of the serious, and long for the comic. Most of our bards disdain the sock and affect the buskin. What the deuce have we to do with kings and emperors? What's Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba? Let me have a lively representation of life. A good comedy laughs us out of our follies, and is really improving. A poetical genius, and a knowledge of the passions, are all that are required in a tragic writer; but for one to succeed in comedy, how many qualities are necessary? An intimate acquaintance of life and manners; a perspicuity to develope the movements of the mind; a promptitude of discovering the ridiculous parts of action; a gaiety of disposition, joined to a pointed irony and delicate wit. This is what I understand by the vis comica, which the antients praised so much in Menander, and of which we have instances in some of our own comedies.

"I have just now before me a tragedy called Minorca,†

* See a curious account of Shuter the actor in W. Jay's Life of Rev. Cornelius Winter, 1809, pp. 25-27. He attended the ministry of Mr. Whitefield at Tottenham-court chapel, and the preacher once addressed him individually from the pulpit, "And thou, poor Rambler, &c."

†This contemptible tragedy was by Henry Dill, 1756, just after the place from which it is named was taken. Dill was a bookseller. See an account of him in “Literary Anecdotes,” III. 641.

but I would rather have stood my chance of a fire of a bomb in Fort St. Philip's than be obliged to read its whole three acts. It is even worse than John Slade's.* I hope I do not know the author.

"Have you seen Bally's † prize poem? They tell me it is wretched stuff, as are all his compositions. Compliments to Dr. Gilbert; and am, dear sir, your friend and servant, "J. GRAINGER. "P.S. I shall write the Doctor soon."

“*** Let me know your determination soon; and in the interim send me the first Elegy [of Tibullus]. The difference of stanza shall be apologised for in the Advertisement. Think of some notes.'

REV. T. PERCY to Dr. GRAINGER.

"MY DEAR GRAINGER,

"Easton Mauduit, March 24, 1757.

"I hope before this you have received a packet from me, containing your Advertisement, with a few slight marginal remarks: I inclosed it in a cover to my Lord Sussex, having had occasion to write to him; and I hope one of his servants, or the Penny Post, have before this conveyed it to you. I am ashamed to make you pay postage for trifles of so little value as my billets; and, on the other hand,

* John Slade was a lieutenant of marines, and lost his life in the Ramillies, when that ship was cast away, Feb. 15, 1760. He wrote "Love and Duty," a tragedy, 1756. It was acted for one night only, at the Haymarket Theatre, by himself and friends. + The Rev. George Bally, M.A. Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. He gained the prize for the Seatonian poem in the years 1755 and 1756, by the following poems, "The Justice of the Supreme Being," and "The Wisdom of the Supreme Being." These poems are, however, heartily abused by the Monthly Reviewers, xii. 159, xv. 678. In 1757 he wrote again for the prize, but his poem was rejected in favour of one by Dr. Glynn. He, however, published his poem. The subject was "The Day of Judgment." (Monthly Review, xvii. 395, 404.) But this rejection did not deter him from writing for the next year's prize, when he was again successful; the subject, "The Providence of the Supreme Being," criticised in Monthly Review, xix. 588. In 1759 he was presented to the rectory of Monxton, Hampshire.

Dr. Grainger thus notices Mr. Percy's assistance in his advertisement to Tibullus: "The translator must return his sincere thanks to a worthy friend for his elegant translation of the first Elegy, and of Ovid's poem on the death of Tibullus. By what accident his own translation of the first Elegy was lost is of no consequence; especially, too, as the reader, from a perusal of Mr. P[ercy]'s specimen, will probably be inclined to wish that some of those now published had undergone a like fate, provided the same gentleman had likewise translated them."