Where once my careless childhood stray'd, I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow, As waving fresh their gladsome wing, To breathe a second spring. Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen The paths of pleasure trace; The captive linnet which enthrall! To chase the rolling circle's speed,* Gray continued to reside at Cambridge (it is considered) principally on account of the valuable libraries of the University-for he was one of the greatest readers, though the most sparing of writers. While at dinner one day in the College-hall, he was taken ill, and after six days' suffering, he expired July 30, 1771: he was buried according to his desire, by the side of his mother, at Stoke. Gray was a profound as well as elegant scholar; "he attained the highest degree of splendor of which poetical style. seems to be capable; he is the only modern English writer whose Latin verses deserve general notice; in his letters he has shown the descriptive powers of a poet; in new combinations of generally familiar words he was eminently happy; and he was the most learned poet since Milton.” (Sir James Mackintosh.) Gray was also an excellent botanist, zoologist, and antiquary. The accomplished Earl of Carlisle, who has elegantly commemorated the genius of this poet, feeling the identification which his celebrated Ode gives to his muse with the memory of Eton, has presented to the College a bust of Gray, which has been added to the collection of the busts of other worthies placed in the Upper School-room. HOW BRINDLEY TAUGHT HIMSELF THE RUDIMENTS OF MECHANICS. James Brindley, the sagacious engineer, was born in Derbyshire, in 1716, and was employed when a boy in field labor. His father, who had reduced himself to extreme poverty by his dissipated habits, allowed his son to grow up without any education; and to the end of his life this great genius was barely able to read, and could write little more than his own name. At the age of 17, he apprenticed himself to a millwright at Macclesfield, *"To chase the hoop's elusive speed.”—MS. a few miles from his native place. He was sadly neglected by his master, who frequently left him for whole weeks together, to execute works concerning which he had not given him any instruction. These works Brindley finished in his own way, greatly to the surprise of his master, who was often astonished at the improvements his apprentice from time to time introduced into the millwright business. He rose to be the greatest engineer of his day, not only in mill machinery, but in drainage works, and the improvement of our inland navigation by canals. It was when being examined before a Committee of the House of Commons, and being asked for what objects rivers were created, he gave the ready answer, "To feed navigable canals." Brindley's designs were the resources of his own mind alone. When he was beset with any difficulty, he secluded himself, and worked out unaided the means of accomplishing his schemes. Sometimes he lay in bed for two or three days; but when he arose, he proceeded at once to carry his plans into effect, without the help of drawings or models. WILLIAM COLLINS AT WINCHESTER AND OXFORD. William Collins, whose odes exhibit vast powers of poetry, and who is inferior to no English poet of the 18th century, except Gray, was born at Chichester, in 1721.* His father was a hatter, and at the time of the poet's birth, mayor of Chichester. He was sent, when very young, to the prebendal school there, an ancient institution founded by Bishop Storey, in the reign of Edward IV.; here also were educated Selden, Bishop Juxon, and Hurdis. Collins was early designed by his parents for the church. He was removed from Chichester, and admitted a scholar on the foundation of Winchester College in 1733. In this venerable institution-where the scholars on the foundation wear the dress prescribed by the rules of the founder, in which rejoicings over a holiday are sung in ancient Latin verse, and terms and phrases long fallen into disuse without its walls, are still the current talk of healthy boys-Collins remained seven years. The master was then Dr. Burton, a name that will long be associated with the college. Among Collins's schoolfellows were William Whitehead and Joseph Warton, the poets, and Hampton, afterward * Collins, in his "Ode to Pity," alludes to his "native plains," which are bounded by the South Downs, and to the small river Arun, one of the streams of Sussex, near which Otway also was born: But wherefore need I wander wide To old Ilissus's distant side? Deserted stream and mute! Wild Arun, too, has heard thy strains, Been soothed by Pity's lute. translator of Polybius -Life, by Mr. Moy Thomas, prefixed to new edition of Collins's Poetical Works. 1858.* About September, 1733, Lord Peterborough paid a visit to Winchester College, with Pope, who proposed a subject for a poem. Collins was then too young to contest the prizes, which were carried off by Whitehead and Hampton; but he must have seen Pope on that occasion. Johnson speaks of verses published five years later as those by which Collins "first courted the notice of the public;" but he appears to have made verses as early as Pope. He is said at twelve years old to have written a poem "On the Battle of the School-books," at Winchester, probably suggested by Swift's satire, of which the line "And every Gradus flapped his leathern wing"- was afterward remembered. At Winchester, when about seventeen years old, Collins wrote his Persian Eclogues, after reading that volume of Salmon's Modern History which describes Persia. In January, 1733, some lines, by Collins, appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine; and in October of that year, the Editor inserted a Sonnet from Collins, together with some verses of Joseph Warton, and another school-fellow at Winchester, which came, he tells us, "in one letter;" and in the next number of the Magazine appeared a criticism on the above three poems, written by Dr. Johnson, then toiling in poverty and obscurity, for Cave: he gives the palm to Collins's Sonnet. On March 21, 1740, Collins was formally admitted a commoner of Queen's College; but he did not go to Oxford until some time afterward. In the summer of the same year, Collins was elected at Winchester, and placed first on the roll for admission in the succeeding year to New College, Oxford; but no vacancy occurred - a rare misfortune, which, however, had befallen the poet Young some years before. Next year, Collins was admitted a Demy of Magdalen College, where he continued to devote himself to poetry. Langhorne states that he was at this time distinguished for genius and indolence, and that the few exercises which he could be induced to write bore evident marks of both qualities. Among his college acquaintances were Hampton and Gilbert White, and his constant friends the two Wartons. On November 18, 1743, Collins took the degree of Bachelor of Arts: he quitted the college at some time before the July election in 1744. He obtained a curacy, but soon gave up all views in the church, * Aldine Poets. Published by Bell and Daldy. This edition has a portrait of Collins at the age of fourteen, from a drawing: no other portrait of Collins is known to exist. and preferred the precarious profession of a man of letters. His irresolution soon led him into difficulties. But his studies were extensive, and his scholarship great. His Odes have always been the favorite of poets; and they won for him the praises he prized most. He enjoyed the friendship and affection of Johnson; and the intimacy of Thomson. But the latter part of his short life must be remembered with pity and sadness: he languished for some years under depression of mind, and was for a time bereft of reason. He died in 1756, at Chichester, and is buried in the Cathedral, where a monument, by Flaxman, has been erected to his memory. The poet is represented reading an English Testament, such as at one period he invariably traveled with; it is referred in the inscription on the tablet by the poet Hayley and Mr. John Sargent : Who joined pure faith to strong poetic powers; LORD CLIVE-HIS DARING BOYHOOD. Robert Clive, the founder of the British empire in India, was born in 1726, at Styche, near Market Drayton, in Shropshire, where his family had been settled since the twelfth century. Some lineaments of the character of the man (says Lord Macaulay) were early discerned in the child There remain letters written by his relations when he was in his seventh year; and from these letters it appears that, even at that early age, his strong will and his fiery passions, sustained by a constitutional intrepidity which sometimes seemed hardly compatible with soundness of mind, had begun to cause great uneasiness to his family. "Fighting," says one of his uncles, "to which he is out of measure addicted, gives his temper such a fierceness and imperiousness, that he flies out on every trifling occasion." The old people in the neighborhood still remember to have heard from their parents how Bob Clive climbed to the top of the lofty steeple of Market Drayton, and with what terror the inhabitants saw him seated on a stone spout near the summit. They also relate how he formed all the idle lads of the town into a kind of predatory army, and compelled the shopkeepers to submit to a tribute of apples and halfpence, in consideration of which he guaranteed the security of their windows. He was sent from school to school, making very little progress in his learning, and gaining for himself everywhere the character of an exceedingly naughty boy. One of his masters, it is said, was sagacious enough to prophesy that the idle lad would make a great figure in the world. But the general opinion seems to have been that poor Robert was a dunce, if not a reprobate. His family expected nothing good from such slender parts and such a headstrong temper It is not strange, therefore, that they gladly accepted for him, when he was in his eighteenth year, a writership in the service of the East India Company, and shipped him off to make a fortune, or die of fever at Madras. Clive arrived at Madras in 1744, where his situation was most painful: his pay was small, he was wretchedly lodged, and his shy and haughty disposition withheld him from introducing himself to strangers. The climate affected his health and spirits, and his duties were ill-suited to his ardent and daring character. "He pined for his home, and in his letters to his relations expressed his feelings in language softer and more pensive than we should have expected from the waywardness of his boyhood, ner.'" or from the inflexible sternness of his later years. I have not enjoyed,' says he, 'one happy day since I left my native country; and again, 'I must confess at intervals, when I think of my dear native England, it affects me in a very particular manClive, however, found one solace. The Governor of Madras possessed a good library, and permitted Clive to have access to it: he devoted much of his leisure to reading, and acquired at this time almost all the knowledge of books that he ever possessed. As a boy he had been too idle, as a man he had become too busy, for literary pursuits. His career of prosperity and glory, of wounded honor and bodily affliction, has been vividly drawn by Lord Macaulay, who considers him entitled to an honorable place in the estimation of posterity. From his first visit to India, dates the renown of the English arms in the East; from his second visit, the political ascendancy of the English in that country; and from his third visit, the purity of the administration of our Eastern empire, which, since this was written, the wicked ingratitude of revolt has done so much to endanger. CAPTAIN COOK'S EDUCATION ON BOARD SHIP. It was at sea that Cook acquired those high scientific accomplishments by which he became the first circumnavigator of his day. He was born in 1728, and was the son of an agricultural laborer and farm-bailiff, at Marton, near Stockton-upon-Tees. All the school education he ever had was a little reading, writing, and arithmetic, for which he was indebted to the liberality of a gentleman in the neighborhood. He was apprenticed, at the age of 13, to a haberdasher at the fishing-town of Staiths, near Whitby; while in this situation he was first seized with a passion for the sea; and having procured a discharge from his master, he apprenticed himself to a firm in the coal trade at Whitby, on board a coasting-vessel. In this service he rose to be mate, when, in 1755, being in the Thames, he entered as a volunteer in the royal navy. He soon distinguished himself so greatly that in three or four years afterward he was appointed master of the Mercury, which belonged to a squadron then proceeding to attack Quebec. Here he first showed the proficiency he had already made in the scientific part of his profession by constructing an admirable chart of the river St. Lawrence. felt, however, the disadvantages of his ignorance of mathematics; and while still assisting in the hostile operations carrying on against the French on the coast of North America, he applied himself to the study of Euclid's Elements, which he soon mastered, and then began to study astronomy. A year or He |