"WILL WHITEHEAD, Sire, hath wish'd the world good night, Pray who shall fabricate your next year's Ode?

As I most laudably can read and write,

Let me the line with GEORGE's virtues load!

Sire, if you'll make me LAUREAT, I declare
I'll chaunt you, if you do but take the air;
And if it should your Royal humour suit,
I'll sing your horse to boot.

"But Sire, perchance you've been be-rhym'd so long,
Your Royal Ear is sick of BIRTH-DAY SONG!

In this case, you'll be better serv'd by NONE;
For, order me the SALARY and WINE,
I'll whisper to APOLLO and the NINE,

And so contrive to let the ODE ALONE."

PINDAR'S ODE ON THE DEATH OF WHITEHEAD.

THE father of Thomas Warton was vicar of Basingstoke, in which town the future laureate was born in 1728. It has been said that he was educated at Winchester school, probably because his brother afterwards became head master of that establishment. This was not however the case; he remained under his father's tuition until he was

admitted a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, on the 16th March, 1743,

He early displayed a great attachment to poetry, and when only seventeen years of age wrote The Pleasures of Melancholy, which was published anonymously in 1747. The following year he published The Triumph of Isis, a poem in defence of Oxford, as an answer to Mason's attack upon that seat of learning in his Isis, an Elegy. About the time of the 1745 Rebellion, Oxford men were suspected of favouring the Stuart party; it is doubtful how far the suspicion was well founded; but some drunken brawls occurred, and after an inquiry into the circumstances, considerable blame was thrown upon the ViceChancellor, and the heads of several of the Colleges.

The following epigram, said to have been written by the father of Thomas Warton, was current at the time :

"The King observing with judicious eyes
The state of his two universities;

To Oxford sent a troop of horse; for why?
That learned body wanted loyalty.

To Cambridge he sent books, as well discerning
How much that loyal body wanted learning."

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Mason seized the opportunity to sing the praises of Cambridge, adverting in his poem to the above circumstances, and decrying the university of Oxford. Warton replied in his Triumph, by enumerating the distinguished men who had studied at Oxford, and, in a tone of mild expostulation, accuses Cambridge of venality and servility :

"Still sing, O CAM, your fav'rite Freedom's cause;
Still boast of Freedom, while you break her laws.”

:

The finest passage in this poem is that descriptive of

Oxford, which is indeed well worthy of a place with the best of our descriptive poetry:

"Ye fretted pinnacles, ye fanes sublime,

Ye towers that wear the mossy vest of time;
Ye massy piles of old munificence,

At once the pride of learning and defence;
Ye cloisters pale, that lengthening to the sight,
To contemplation, step by step, invite ;

Ye high-arch'd walks, where oft the whispers clear,
Of harps unseen have swept the poet's ear;
Ye temples dim, where pious duty pays
Her holy hymns of ever-echoing praise ;
Lo! your lov'd Isis, from the bordering vale,
With all a mother's fondness bids you hail!
Hail, Oxford, hail! of all that's good and great,
Of all that's fair, the guardian and the seat:
Nurse of each brave pursuit, each generous aim,
By truth exalted to the throne of fame!
Like Greece in science and in liberty,

As Athens learn'd, as Lacedemon free!"

Dr. Johnson so greatly admired this poem, that when he first heard it read, it is said, he clapped his hands with delight until they were sore. Some of his admiration may have been the result of party feeling, for he was no enemy to the Jacobites; and Warton, whilst zealously defending the cause of freedom in his poem, does not boast of the loyalty of Oxford to the Hanoverian king, or even assert his own.

In the common room belonging to the bachelors and gentlemen commoners of Trinity College, it was formerly the practice to elect annually certain officers, and amongst others a poet laureate, whose duty it was to celebrate in English verses the lady patroness, who was also annually elected. On an appointed day the members of the room assembled, and the poet laureate, crowned with a wreath

of laurel, recited his verses. Warton was elected to this post in 1747, and again in 1748; his verses, which are still preserved in the common room, are written in an elegant and flowing style, and have that kind of merit which doubtless insured them applause when they were read, with the advantages of local and personal interest.

On the 1st of December, 1750, he became M.A., and in 1751 he succeeded to a Fellowship, and was thus placed in easy and independent circumstances, favourable to his habits of meditation and study.

In 1754 he published his Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser, in one volume octavo; this he afterwards corrected and enlarged, and republished in two volumes in 1762. The fame which this great critical work brought him, doubtless led to his election to the Professorship of Poetry, in 1757,-the duties of which office he fulfilled with great credit for the usual term of ten years.

In 1782 Warton was presented by his College to the small living of Hill Farrance, in Somersetshire; he also held another small clerical appointment, and was elected a member of the celebrated Literary Club.

His greatest and most important work, The History of English Poetry, still a standard book, containing most valuable information, was issued, the first volume in 1774, the second in 1778, and the third in 1781; unfortunately it was never completed. It concludes with "a general view and character of the poetry of Queen Elizabeth's age," a period which Warton styles the most poetical of our annals.

Warton's pen was seldom idle, for in addition to these grave historical and critical books, he wrote many lively odes and sonnets, and some amusing satirical and humor

ous poems.

Of the latter the most admired is his Panegyric on Oxford Ale, which, like Philip's Splendid

Shilling, is a parody of Milton's blank verse.

A PANEGYRIC ON OXFORD ALE.

"Balm of my cares, sweet solace of my toils,
Hail, JUICE benignant! O'er the costly cups.
Of riot-stirring wine, unwholesome draught,
Let Pride's loose sons prolong the wasteful night;
My sober evening let the Tankard bless,

With toast embrown'd, and fragrant nutmeg fraught,
While the rich draught with oft-repeated whiffs
Tobacco mild improves. Divine repast!
Where no crude surfeit, or intemperate joys
Of lawless Bacchus reign; but o'er my soul
A calm Lethean creeps; in drowsy trance
Each thought subsides, and sweet oblivion wraps
My peaceful brain, as if the leaden rod

Of magic Morpheus o'er mine eyes had shed
Its opiate influence. What tho' sore ills
Oppress, dire want of chill-dispelling coals
Or cheerful candle (save the makeweight's gleam
Haply remaining) heart-rejoicing ALE

Cheers the sad scene, and every want supplies."

Deeply imbued as Warton was with the beauties of the earlier English poets, such as Chaucer, Drayton, Fairfax, and Spenser, it is not surprising that quaint words, such as aye, eld, watchet, murky, and antiquated phrases should be found in his own poems.

This peculiarity of style was, in the judgment of Dr. Johnson, a serious fault, and was ridiculed by him in the lines:

"Wheresoe'er I turn my view,

All is strange, yet nothing new.
Endless labour all along,

Endless labour to be wrong;