And in her hand, for sceptre, she does wield Tway birchen sprays; with anxious fear entwined, With dark distrust, and sad repentance filled; And steadfast hate, and sharp affliction joined, And fury uncontrolled, and chastisement unkind. A russet stole was o'er her shoulders thrown; A russet kirtle fenced the nipping air; "Twas simple russet, but it was her own; 'Twas her own country bred the flock so fair! "Twas her own labour did the fleece prepare; And, sooth to say, her pupils ranged 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 car; Yet these she challenged, these she held right dear; But there was eke a mind which did that title love. Herbs, too, she knew, and well of each could speak, Here oft the dame, on Sabbath's decent eve, Hymned such psalms as Sternhold forth did mete; If winter 'twere, she to her hearth did cleave, But in her garden found a summer-seat: Sweet melody! to hear her then repeat How Israel's sons, beneath a foreign king, While taunting foemen did a song entreat, All, for the nonce, untuning every string, Uphung their useless lyres-small heart had they to sing. For she was just, and friend to virtuous lore, And passed much time in truly virtuous deed; And, in those elfins' ears would oft deplore The times, when truth by popish rage did bleed, And tortuous death was true devotion's meed; And simple faith in iron chains did mourn, That nould on wooden image place her creed; And lawny saints in smouldering flames did burn: Ah! dearest Lord, forefend thilk days should e'er return. In elbow-chair (like that of Scottish stem, By the sharp tooth of cankering eld defaced, In which, when he receives his diadem, Our sovereign prince and liefest liege is placed) The matron sat; and some with rank she graced, (The source of children's and of courtiers' pride!) Redressed affronts-for vile affronts there passed'; And warned them not the fretful to deride, But love cach other dear, whatever them betide. Right well she knew each temper to descry, Lo! now with state she utters her command; To save from finger wet the letters fair: Kens the forthcoming rod-unpleasing sight, I ween! O ruthful scene! when, from a nook obscure, No longer can she now her shrieks command; But, ah! what pen his piteous plight may trace But now Dan Phoebus gains the middle sky, Enjoy, poor imps! enjoy your sportive trade, * Spenser. Oh vain to seek delight in earthly thing! But most in courts, where proud ambition towers; Deluded wight! who weens fair peace can spring Beneath the pompous dome of kesar or of king. See in each sprite some various bent appear! In pastry kings and queens the allotted mite to spend. Here as each season yields a different store, Each season's stores in order ranged been; Apples with cabbage-net y-covered o'er, Galling full sore the unmoneyed wight, are seen, And goosebrie clad in livery red or green; And here, of lovely dye, the catharine pear, Fine pear! as lovely for thy juice, I ween; O may no wight e'er penniless come there, Lest, smit with ardent love, he pine with hopeless care. See, cherries here, ere cherries yet abound, With thread so white in tempting posies tied, Scattering, like blooming maid, their glances round, With pampered look draw little eyes aside; And must be bought, though penury betide. The plum all azure, and the nut all brown; And here each season do those cakes abide, Whose honoured names" the inventive city own, Rendering through Britain's isle Salopia's praises known. Admired Salopia! that with venial pride A Pastoral Ballad, in Four Parts-1743. I. ABSENCE. Ye shepherds, so cheerful and gay, Nor talk of the change that ye find; I have left my dear Phyllis behind. Now I know what it is to have strove With the torture of doubt and desire; What it is to admire and to love, And to leave her we love and admire. I have bade my dear Phyllis farewell. I prized every hour that went by, And I grieve that I prized them no more. *Shrewsbury Cakes. But why do I languish in vain ? The pride of that valley, is flown; My path I could hardly discern; I thought that she bade me return. Is happy, nor heard to repine. And my solace, wherever I go. II. HOPE. My banks they are furnished with bees, Such health do my fountains bestow; Not a pine in my grove is there seen, But a sweetbrier entwines it around. One would think she might like to retire To the bower I have laboured to rear; Not a shrub that I heard her admire, But I hasted and planted it there. O how sudden the jessamine strove With the lilac to render it gay! Already it calls for my love To prune the wild branches away. From the plains, from the woodlands, and groves, I have found out a gift for my fair, I have found where the wood-pigeons breed ; But let me that plunder forbear, She will say, 'twas a barbarous deed. A I have heard her with sweetness unfold And she called it the sister of Love. But her words such a pleasure convey, Can a bosom so gentle remain Unmoved, when her Corydon sighs! Will a nymph that is fond of the plain, These plains and this valley despise ? Dear regions of silence and shade! Soft scenes of contentment and ease! Where I could have pleasingly strayed, If aught in her absence could please. But where does my Phyllida stray? And where are her grots and her bowers? Are the groves and the valleys as gay, And the shepherds as gentle as ours? The groves may perhaps be as fair, And the face of the valleys as fine; The swains may in manners compare, But their love is not equal to mine. III. SOLICITUDE. Why will you my passion reprove? Why term it a folly to grieve? O you that have been of her train, That will sing but a song in her praise. For when Paridel tries in the dance Might she ruin the peace of my mind! And his crook is bestudded around; "Tis his with mock passion to glow, To the grove or the garden he strays, More sweet than the jessamine's flower! Then the lily no longer is white, Then the rose is deprived of its bloom, Then the violets die with despite, And the woodbines give up their perfume.' Thus glide the soft numbers along, And he fancies no shepherd his peer; Yet I never should envy the song, Were not Phyllis to lend it an ear. Let his crook be with hyacinths bound, IV. DISAPPOINTMENT. Ye shepherds, give ear to my lay, She was fair, and my passion begun; Perhaps I was void of all thought: That a nymph so complete would be sought It banishes wisdom the while; She is faithless, and I am undone; Ye that witness the woes I endure, Amid nymphs of a higher degree: How fair and how fickle they be. Alas! from the day that we met, What hope of an end to my woes? The glance that undid my repose. The sweets of a dew-sprinkled rose, The sound of a murmuring stream, The peace which from solitude flows, Henceforth shall be Corydon's theme. High transports are shown to the sight, But we are not to find them our own; Fate never bestowed such delight, As I with my Phyllis had known. O ye woods, spread your branches apace; I would hide with the beasts of the chase; Song.-Jemmy Dawson.* Come listen to my mournful tale, * Captain James Dawson, the amiable and unfortunate subject of these stanzas, was one of the eight officers belonging to the Manchester regiment of volunteers, in the service of the young chevalier, who were hanged, drawn, and quartered, on Kennington-Common in 1746. And thou, dear Kitty, peerless maid, A brighter never trod the plain; O had he never seen that day! Their colours and their sash he wore, And in the fatal dress was found; And now he must that death endure, Which gives the brave the keenest wound. How pale was then his true love's cheek, When Jemmy's sentence reached her ear! For never yet did Alpine snows So pale or yet so chill appear. With faltering voice she weeping said, Yet might sweet mercy find a place, Should learn to lisp the giver's name. But though, dear youth, thou shouldst be dragged Which she had fondly loved so long; On which her love-sick head reposed: She bore this constant heart to see; The dismal scene was o'er and past, The lover's mournful hearse retired; The maid drew back her languid head, And, sighing forth his name, expired. Though justice ever must prevail, The tear my Kitty sheds is due; [Written at an Inn at Henley.] To thee, fair Freedom, I retire I fly from pomp, I fly from plate, And choose my lodgings at an inn. DAVID MALLET. DAVID MALLET, author of some beautiful ballad stanzas, and some florid unimpassioned poems in blank verse, was a successful but unprincipled literary adventurer. He praised and courted Pope while living, and, after experiencing his kindness, traduced his memory when dead. He earned a disgraceful pension by contributing to the death of a brave naval officer, Admiral Byng, who fell a victim to the clamour of faction; and by various other acts of his life, he evinced that self-aggrandisement was his only steady and ruling passion. When Johnson, therefore, states that Mallet was the only Scot whom Scotchmen did not commend, he pays a compliment to the virtue and integrity of the natives of Scotland. The original name of the poet was Malloch, which, after his removal to London, and his intimacy with the great, he changed to Mallet, as more easily pronounced by the English. His father kept a small inn at Crieff, Perthshire, where David was born about the year 1700. He attended Aberdeen college, and was afterwards received, though without salary, as tutor in the family of Mr Home of Dreghorn, near Edinburgh. He next obtained a similar situation, but with a salary of £30 per annum, in the family of the Duke of Montrose. In 1723, he went to London with the duke's family, and next year his ballad of William and Margaret appeared in Hill's periodical, The Plain Dealer. He soon numbered among his friends Young, Pope, and other eminent persons, to whom his assiduous attentions, his agreeable manners, and literary taste, rendered his society acceptable. In 1733 he published a satire on Bentley, inscribed to Pope, entitled Verbal Criticism, in which he characterises the venerable scholar as In error obstinate, in wrangling loud, Mallet was appointed under secretary to the Prince of Wales, with a salary of £200 per annum; and, in conjunction with Thomson, he produced, in 1740, the Masque of Alfred, in honour of the birth-day of the Princess Augusta. A fortunate second marriage (nothing is known of his first) brought to the poet a fortune of £10,000. The lady was daughter of Lord Carlisle's steward. Both Mallet and his wife professed to be deists, and the lady is said to have surprised some of her friends by commencing her arguments with-'Sir, we deists.' When Gibbon the historian was dismissed from his college at Oxford for embracing popery, he took refuge in Mallet's house, and was rather scandalised, he says, than reclaimed, by the philosophy of his host. Wilkes mentions that the vain and fantastic wife of Mallet one day lamented to a lady that her husband suffered in reputation by his name being so often confounded with that of Smollett; the lady wittily answered, 'Madam, there is a short remedy; let your husband keep his own name.' To gratify Lord Bolingbroke, Mallet, in his preface to the Patriot King, heaped abuse on the memory of Pope, and Bolingbroke rewarded him by bequeathing to him the whole of his works and manuscripts. When the government became unpopular by the defeat at Minorca, he was employed to defend them, and under the signature of a Plain Man, he published an address imputing cowardice to the admiral of the fleet. He succeeded: Byng was shot, and Mallet was pensioned. On the death of the Duchess of Marlborough, it was found that she had left £1000 to Glover, author of 'Leonidas,' and Mallet, jointly, on condition that they should draw up from the family papers a life of the great duke. Glover, indignant at a stipulation in the will, that the memoir was to be submitted before publication to the Earl of Chesterfield, and being a high-spirited man, devolved the whole on Mallet, who also received a pension from the second Duke of Marlborough, to stimulate his industry. He pretended to be busy with the work, and in the dedication to a small collection of his poems published in 1762, he stated that he hoped soon to present his grace with something more solid in the life of the first Duke of Marlborough. Mallet had received the solid money, and cared for nothing else. On his death, it was found that not a single line of the memoir had been written. In his latter days the poet held the lucrative situation of Keeper of the Book of Entries for the port of London. He died April 21, 1765. Mallet wrote some theatrical pieces, which, though partially successful on their representation, are now utterly forgotten. Gibbon anticipated, that, if ever his friend should attain poetic fame, it would be acquired by his poem of Amyntor and Theodora. This, the longest of his poetical works, is a tale in blank verse, the scene of which is laid in the solitary island of St Kilda, whither one of his characters, Aurelius, had fled to avoid the religious persecutions under Charles II. Some highly-wrought descriptions of marine scenery, storms, and shipwreck, with a few touches of natural pathos and affection, constitute the chief characteristics of the poem. The whole, however, even the very names in such a locality, has an air of improbability and extravagance. Another work of the same kind, but inferior in execution, is his poem The Excursion, written in imitation of the style of Thomson's 'Seasons.' The defects of Thomson's style are servilely copied; some of his epithets and expressions are also borrowed; but there is no approach to his redeeming graces and beauties. Contrary to the dictum of Gibbon, the poetic fame of Mallet rests on his ballads, and chiefly on his William and Margaret,' which, written at the age of twentythree, afforded high hopes of ultimate excellence. The simplicity, here remarkable, he seems to have thrown aside when he assumed the airs and dress of a man of taste and fashion. All critics, from Dr Percy downwards, have united in considering' William and Margaret' one of the finest compositions of the kind in our language. Sir Walter Scott conceived that Mallet had imitated an old Scottish tale to be found in Allan Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany,' beginning, William and Margaret. 'Twas at the silent solemn hour, Her face was like an April morn Clad in a wintry cloud; So shall the fairest face appear When youth and years are flown : Such is the robe that kings must wear, When death has reft their crown. Her bloom was like the springing flower, But love had, like the canker-worm, The rose grew pale, and left her cheek- Awake! she cried, thy true love calls, This is the dark and dreary hour When injured ghosts complain; Why did you promise love to me, |