JOHN ARMSTRONG.
Born 1709-Died 1779.
ARMSTRONG was a physician. He published many prose and poetical miscellanies, though none of them display either the fire of genius or the elevation of pure moral sentiment, and his literary fame rests almost exclusively upon his Art cf Preserving Health.
This poem has given him deserved celebrity. He is original, both in the choice of his subject and the manner of treating it. His moral associations are dignified and sometimes sublime, and his versification, though it wants strength and nervous harmony, is yet free from harshness, and is uniform in its flow. "On the whole," says Campbell, "he is likely to be remembered as a poet of judicious thoughts and correct expression; and, as far as the rarely successful application of verse to subjects of science can be admired, an additional merit must be ascribed to the hand, which has reared poetical flowers on the dry and difficult ground of philosophy."
BENIFIT OF AN AIRY SITUATION.
MEANTIME, the moist malignity to shun
Of burden'd skies; mark where the dry champaign Swells into cheerful hills; where marjoram And thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air; And where the cynorrhodon with the rose For fragrance vies: for in the thirsty soil Most fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes. There bid thy roofs high on the basking steep Ascend, there light thy hospitable fires. And let them see the winter-morn arise, The summer-evening blushing in the west; While with umbrageous oaks the ridge behind O'erhung, defends you from the blustering north, And bleak affliction of the peevish East. O! when the growling winds contend, and all The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm ; To sink in warm repose, and hear the din Howl o'er the steady battlements, delights Above the luxury of vulgar sleep.
The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarser strain Of waters rushing o'er the slippery rocks, Will nightly lull you to ambrosial rest. To please the fancy is no trifling good, Where health is studied; for whatever moves The mind with calm delight, promotes the just And natural movements of th' harmonious frame. Besides, the sportive brook forever shakes
The trembling air, that floats from hill to hill, From vale to mountain, with incessant change Of purest element, refreshing still
Your airy seat, and uninfected gods.
Chiefly for this I praise the man who builds High on the breezy ridge, whose lofty sides Th' ethereal deep with endless billows chafes: His purer mansion nor contagious years
Shall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy.
ADDRESS TO THE NAIADS.
Now come, ye Naiads, to the fountains lead; Now let me wander through your gelid reign. I burn to view th' enthusiastic wilds
By mortal else untrod. I hear the din Of waters thundering o'er the ruin'd cliffs. With holy reverence I approach the rocks Whence glide the streams renown'd in ancient song. Here from the desart down the rumbling steep First springs the Nile; here bursts the sounding Po In angry waves; Euphrates hence devolves A mighty flood to water half the East; And there, in gothic solitude reclin'd, The cheerless Tanais pours his hoary urn. What solemn twilight! What stupendous shades Enwrap these infant floods! Through every nerve A sacred horror thrills, a pleasing fear
Glides o'er my frame. The forest deepens round; And more gigantic still, th' impending trees Stretch their extravagant arms athwart the gloom. Are these the confines of some fairy world? A land of genii? Say, beyond these wilds What unknown nations? if indeed beyond Aught habitable lies. And whither leads, To what strange regions, or of bliss or pain, That subterraneous way? Propitious maids, Conduct me, while with fearful steps I tread This trembling ground. The task remains to sing Your gifts, (so Pæon, so the powers of health Command) to praise your crystal element: The chief ingredient in Heaven's various works; Whose flexile genius sparkles in the gem, Grows firm in oak, and fugitive in wine; The vehicle, the scource of nutriment And life, to all that vegetate or live.
O comfortable streams! with eager lips And trembling hand the languid thirsty quaff New life in you; fresh vigour fills their veins.
No warmer cups the rural ages knew ; None warmer sought the sires of human kind. Happy in temperate peace! their equal days Felt not th' alternate fits of feeverish mirth And sick dejection. Still serene and pleas'd, They knew no pains but what the tender soul With pleasure yields to, and would ne'er forget. Bless'd with divine immunity from ails, Long centuries they liv'd; their only fate Was ripe old age, and rather sleep than death. Oh! could those worthies, from the world of gods, Return to visit their degenerate sons,
How would they scorn the joys of modern time, With all our art and toil, improv'd to pain!
TENDENCY OF ALL THINGS TO DECAY.
WHAT does not fade? The tower that long had stood The crush of thunder and the warring winds, Shook by the slow but sure destroyer Time, Now hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base. And flinty pyramids, and walls of brass, Descend: the Babylonian spires are sunk; Achaia, Rome, and Egypt, moulder down. Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones, And tottering empires rush by their own weight. This huge rotundity we tread, grows old; And all those worlds that roll around the sun, The sun himself, shall die; and ancient Night Again involve the desolate abyss:
Till the great FATHER through the lifeless gloom Extend his arm to light another world,
And bid new planets roll by other laws.
For through the regiors of unbounded space, Where unconfin'd Ömnipotence has room, Being, in various systems, fluctuates still Between creation and abhorr'd decay;
It ever did, perhaps, and ever will, New worlds are still emerging from the deep; The old descending, in their turns to rise.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE.
Born 1714-Died 1763.
SHENSTONE'S youth was passed under the instruction of a clergyman, from whom he received a good knowledge of the classics and a taste for the best English literature. In 1732, at the age of eighteen, he entered Oxford University. In 1745,
his paternal estate, the Leasowes, devolved exclusively upon his care, and from this period his life was spent in improving its natural beauties, amusing himself with occasional compositions in prose and poetry, and cultivating the society of his neighbours and visitors. Dodsley, his friend and publisher, wrote an elaborate description of the Leasowes, which drew multitudes to inspect and admire the beauties of the place. Shenstone died in his fiftieth year, after a life, which, though free from crime, seems to have been filled up with trifles, and unadorned by the elevation, or the active benevolence of religion.
Both the moral and poetical character of his writings is generally correct, though not lofty. His Pastoral Ballad contains some fine stanzas, but his Schoolmistress is by far the best of his poetical compositions. It is a natural and pleasing sketch of some of those scenes and characters in childhood, which the mind always loves to retrace. plicity and artlessness of description, good sense, benevolent humour, and pathetic tenderness of feeling, are here blended together in a manner very rare and delightful.
"With all the beauties of the Leasowes in our minds," says Campbell, "it may still be regretted, that instead of devoting his whole soul to clumping beeches, and projecting mottos for summer-houses, he had not gone more into living nature for subjects, and described her interesting realities with the same fond and naive touches, which give so much delightfulness to his portrait of the Schoolmistress."
THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS.
IN every village mark'd with little spire, Embower'd in trees and hardly known to fame, There dwells, in lowly shed and mean attire, A matron old, whom we Schoolmistress name, Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame; They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent, Aw'd by the power of this relentless dame, And oft times, on vagaries idly bent,
For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely shent.
Near to his dome is found a patch so green, On which the tribe their gambols do display, And at the door imprisoning board is seen, Lest weakly wights of smaller size should stray, Eager, perdie, to bask in sunny day!
The noises intermix'd, which thence resound, Do learning's little tenement betray,
Where sits the dame, disguis'd in look profound,
And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel around.
Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow, Emblem right meet of decency does yield; Her apron dy'd in grain, as blue, I trow, As is the harebell that adorns the field; And in her hand, for sceptre, she does wield 'Tway birchen sprays, with anxious fear entwin'd, With dark distrust, and sad repentance fill'd,
And stedfast hate, and sharp affliction join'd, And fury uncontroul'd, and chastisement unkind.
A russet stole was o'er her shoulders thrown, A russet kirtle fenc'd the nipping air; "T was simple russet, but it was her own; "T was her own country bred the flock so fair; "T was her own labour did the fleece prepare ; And, sooth to say, her pupils, rang'd around, Through pious awe did term it passing rare, For they in gaping wonderment abound,
And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground
Albeit, ne flattery did corrupt her truth, Ne pompous title did debauch her ear, Goody, good-woman, gossip, n'aunt, forsooth, Or dame, the sole additions she did hear;
Yet these she challeng'd, these she held right dear; Ne would esteem him act as mought behove Who should not honour'd eld with these revere: For never title yet so mean could prove,
But there was eke a mind which did that title love
One ancient hen she took delight to feed, The plodding pattern of the busy dame, Which ever and anon, impell'd by need, Into her school, begirt with chickens, came, Such favour did her past deportment claim; And if neglect had lavish'd on the ground Fragment of bread, she would collect the same; For well she knew, and quaintly could expound,
What sin it were to waste the smallest crumb she found.
Herbs too she knew, and well of each could speak That in her garden sipp'd the silvery dew, Where no vain flower disclos'd a gaudy streak, But herbs for use and physic, not a few Of gray renown, within those borders grew; The tufted basil, pun-provoking thyme, Fresh baum, and marygold of cheerful hue, The lowly gill, that never dares to climb,
And more I fain would sing, disdaining here to rhyme.
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