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 ear;
Goody, good woman, gossip, n'aunt, forsooth,
Or dame, the sole additions she did hear;
Yet these she challenged, these she held right dear;
Ne would esteem him act as mought behove,
Who should not honoured 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, impelled by need,
Into her school, begirt with chickens, came;
Such favour did her past deportment claim;
And, if neglect had lavished 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 sipped the silvery dew;
Where no vain flower disclosed 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 balm, and marigold of cheerful hue:
The lowly gill, that never dares to climb;

And more I fain would sing, disdaining here to rhyme.

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

Right well she knew each temper to descry, To thwart the proud, and the submiss to raise; Some with vile copper-prize exalt on high, And some entice with pittance small of praise; And other some with baleful sprig she 'frays: Even absent, she the reins of power doth hold, While with quaint arts the giddy crowd she sways; Forewarned, if little bird their pranks behold, 'Twill whisper in her ear, and all the scene unfold.

Lo! now with state she utters her command; Eftsoons the urchins to their tasks repair, Their books of stature small they take in hand, Which with pellucid horn secured are, To save from finger wet the letters fair: The work so gay, that on their back is seen, St George's high achievements does declare; On which thilk wight that has y-gazing been, Kens the forthcoming rod-unpleasing sight, I ween!

Ah! luckless he, and born beneath the beam
Of evil star! it irks me whilst I write;
As erst the bard by Mulla's silver stream,*
Oft, as he told of deadly dolorous plight,
Sighed as he sung, and did in tears indite;
For brandishing the rod, she doth begin
To loose the brogues, the stripling's late delight;
And down they drop; appears his dainty skin,
Fair as the furry coat of whitest ermilin.

O ruthful scene! when, from a nook obscure,
His little sister doth his peril see,
All playful as she sat, she grows demure;
She finds full soon her wonted spirits flee;
She meditates a prayer to set him free;
Nor gentle pardon could this dame deny
(If gentle pardon could with dames agree)
To her sad grief that swells in either eye,
And wrings her so that all for pity she could die.

No longer can she now her shrieks command;
And hardly she forbears, through awful fear,
To rushen forth, and, with presumptuous hand,
To stay harsh justice in its mid career.
On thee she calls, on thee her parent dear;
(Ah! too remote to ward the shameful blow!)
She sees no kind domestic visage near,
And soon a flood of tears begins to flow,
And gives a loose at last to unavailing wo.

But, ah! what pen his piteous plight may trace!
Or what device his loud laments explain-
The form uncouth of his disguised face-
The pallid hue that dyes his looks amain-
The plenteous shower that does his cheek distain?
When he, in abject wise, implores the dame,
Ne hopeth aught of sweet reprieve to gain;
Or when from high she levels well her aim,

And, through the thatch, his cries each falling stroke proclaim.

But now Dan Phœbus gains the middle sky,
And liberty unbars her prison door;
And like a rushing torrent out they fly;
And now the grassy cirque han covered o'er
With boisterous revel rout and wild uproar;
A thousand ways in wanton rings they run.
Heaven shield their short-lived pastimes I implore;
For well may freedom erst so dearly won
Appear to British elf more gladsome than the sun.

Enjoy, poor imps! enjoy your sportive trade,
And chase gay flies, and cull the fairest flowers;
For when my bones in grass-green sods are laid,
Oh never may ye taste more careless hours
In knightly castles or in ladies' bowers.

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!
These rudely carol most incondite lay;
'Those sauntering on the green, with jocund leer
Salute the stranger passing on his way;
Some builden fragile tenements of clay;
Some to the standing lake their courses bend,
With pebbles smooth at duck and drake to play;
Thilk to the huxter's savoury cottage tend,

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
Eyes her bright form in Severn's ambient wave,
Famed for her loyal cares in perils tried,
Her daughters lovely, and her striplings brave :
Ah! midst the rest, may flowers adorn his grave
Whose art did first these dulcet cates display!
A motive fair to learning's imps he gave,
Who cheerless o'er her darkling region stray;
Till reason's morn arise, and light them on their way.

A Pastoral Ballad, in Four Parts-1743.
Arbusta humilesque myrice.'-VIRG.

I. ABSENCE.

Ye shepherds, so cheerful and gay,
Whose flocks never carelessly roam;
Should Corydon's happen to stray,
Oh! call the poor wanderers home.
Allow me to muse and to sigh,
Nor talk of the change that ye find;
None once was so watchful as I;

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.
Ah! lead forth my flock in the morn,
And the damps of each evening repel;
Alas! I am faint and forlorn-

I have bade my dear Phyllis farewell.

Since Phyllis vouchsafed me a look,
I never once dreamt of my vine;
May I lose both my pipe and my crook,
If I knew of a kid that was mine.
I prized every hour that went by,
Beyond all that had pleased me before;
But now they are past, and I sigh,

And I grieve that I prized them no more. * Shrewsbury Cakes.

But why do I languish in vain ?

Why wander thus pensively here? Oh! why did I come from the plain, Where I fed on the smiles of my dear? They tell me, my favourite maid, The pride of that valley, is flown; Alas! where with her I have strayed, I could wander with pleasure alone. When forced the fair nymph to forego, What anguish I felt at my heart: Yet I thought-but it might not be so'Twas with pain that she saw me depart. She gazed as I slowly withdrew, My path I could hardly discern ; So sweetly she bade me adieu,

I thought that she bade me return.

The pilgrim that journies all day
To visit some far distant shrine,
If he bear but a relic away,

Is happy, nor heard to repine.
Thus widely removed from the fair,
Where my vows, my devotion, I owe;
Soft hope is the relic I bear,
And my solace, wherever I go.

II. HOPE.

My banks they are furnished with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep;
My grottos are shaded with trees,
And my hills are white over with sheep.
I seldom have met with a loss,

Such health do my fountains bestow;
My fountains, all bordered with moss,
Where the harebells and violets grow.

Not a pine in my grove is there seen,
But with tendrils of woodbine is bound;
Not a beech's more beautiful green,

But a sweetbrier entwines it around.
Not my fields in the prime of the year
More charms than my cattle unfold;
Not a brook that is limpid and clear,
But it glitters with fishes of gold.

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,
What strains of wild melody flow!
How the nightingales warble their loves,

From thickets of roses that blow!
And when her bright form shall appear,
Each bird shall harmoniously join
In a concert so soft and so clear,
As she may not be fond to resign.

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.
For he ne'er could be true, she averred,
Who could rob a poor bird of his young;
And I loved her the more when I heard
Such tenderness fall from her tongue.

I have heard her with sweetness unfold
How that pity was due to a dove;
That it ever attended the bold,

And she called it the sister of Love.

But her words such a pleasure convey,
So much I her accents adore,
Let her speak, and whatever she say,
Methinks I should love her the more.

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 yalleys 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?
Ere I show you the charms of my love:
She is fairer than you can believe.
With her mien she enamours the brave,
With her wit she engages the free,
With her modesty pleases the grave;
She is every way pleasing to me.

O you that have been of her train,
Come and join in my amorous lays;
I could lay down my life for the swain,
That will sing but a song in her praise.
When he sings, may the nymphs of the town
Come trooping, and listen the while;
Nay, on him let not Phyllida frown,
But I cannot allow her to smile.

For when Paridel tries in the dance
Any favour with Phyllis to find,
O how, with one trivial glance,
Might she ruin the peace of my mind!
In ringlets he dresses his hair,
And his crook is bestudded around;
And his pipe-oh my Phyllis, beware
Of a magic there is in the sound.

'Tis his with mock passion to glow,
'Tis his in smooth tales to unfold
'How her face is as bright as the snow,

And her bosom, be sure, is as cold.
How the nightingales labour the strain,
With the notes of his charmer to vie;
How they vary their accents in vain,
Repine at her triumphs, and die.'

To the grove or the garden he strays,
And pillages every sweet;
Then suiting the wreath to his lays,
He throws it at Phyllis's feet.
'O Phyllis, he whispers, more fair,
More sweet than the jessamine's flower!
What are pinks in a morn, to compare?
What is eglantine after a shower?

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,
So Phyllis the trophy despise:
Let his forehead with laurels be crowned,
So they shine not in Phyllis's eyes.
The language that flows from the heart,
Is a stranger to Paridel's tongue;
Yet may she beware of his art,
Or sure I must envy the song.

IV. DISAPPOINTMENT.

Ye shepherds, give ear to my lay,
And take no more heed of my sheep:
They have nothing to do but to stray;
I have nothing to do but to weep.
Yet do not my folly reprove;
She was fair, and my passion begun;
She smiled, and I could not but love;
She is faithless, and I am undone.

Perhaps I was void of all thought:
Perhaps it was plain to foresee,
That a nymph so complete would be sought
By a swain more engaging than me.
Ah! love every hope can inspire;
It banishes wisdom the while;
And the lip of the nymph we admire
Seems for ever adorned with a smile.

She is faithless, and I am undone;
Ye that witness the woes I endure,
Let reason instruct you to shun
What it cannot instruct you to cure.
Beware how you loiter in vain
Amid nymphs of a higher degree:
It is not for me to explain

How fair and how fickle they be.
Alas! from the day that we met,
What hope of an end to my woes?
When I cannot endure to forget
The glance that undid my repose.
Yet time may diminish the pain:
The flower, and the shrub, and the tree,
Which I reared for her pleasure in vain,
In time may have comfort for me.

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;
To your deepest recesses I fly;

I would hide with the beasts of the chase;
I would vanish from every eye.

Yet my reed shall resound through the grove
With the same sad complaint it begun;
How she smiled, and I could not but love;
Was faithless, and I am undone!

Song. Jemmy Dawson.*

Come listen to my mournful tale,
Ye tender hearts and lovers dear;
Nor will you scorn to heave a sigh,
Nor will you blush to shed a tear.

And thou, dear Kitty, peerless maid,
Do thou a pensive ear incline;
For thou canst weep at every wo,
And pity every plaint but mine.
Young Dawson was a gallant youth,
A brighter never trod the plain;
And well he loved one charming maid,
And dearly was he loved again.
One tender maid she loved him dear,

Of gentle blood the damsel came:
And faultless was her beauteous form,
And spotless was her virgin fame.
But curse on party's hateful strife,
That led the favoured youth astray;
The day the rebel clans appeared,
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,
Oh Dawson, monarch of my heart!
Think not thy death shall end our loves,
For thou and I will never part.

Yet might sweet mercy find a place,
And bring relief to Jemmy's woes,
O George! without a prayer for thee
My orisons should never close.
The gracious prince that gave him life
Would crown a never-dying flame;
And every tender babe I bore

Should learn to lisp the giver's name.

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;
For seldom shall she hear a tale
So sad, so tender, and so true.

[Written at an Inn at Henley.]

To thee, fair Freedom, I retire
From flattery, cards, and dice, and din;
Nor art thou found in mansions higher
Than the low cot or humble inn.
'Tis here with boundless power I reign,
And every health which I begin
Converts dull port to bright champagne:
Such freedom crowns it at an inn.

I fly from pomp, I fly from plate,
I fly from falsehood's specious grin;
Freedom I love, and form I hate,
And choose my lodgings at an inn.
Here, waiter! take my sordid ore,
Which lackeys else might hope to win;
It buys what courts have not in store,
It buys me freedom at an inn.

Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome 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

To yonder ignominious tree, Thou shalt not want a faithful friend

To share thy bitter fate with thee.
O then her mourning-coach was called,
The sledge moved slowly on before;
Though borne in her triumphal car,
She had not loved her favourite more.

She followed him, prepared to view
The terrible behests of law;
And the last scene of Jemmy's woes
With calm and steadfast eye she saw.
Distorted was that blooming face,
Which she had fondly loved so long;
And stifled was that tuneful breath,
Which in her praise had sweetly sung:
And severed was that beauteous neck,
Round which her arms had fondly closed;
And mangled was that beauteous breast,
On which her love-sick head reposed :

And ravished was that constant heart,
She did to every heart prefer;
For though it could its king forget,
'Twas true and loyal still to her.
Amid those unrelenting flames

She bore this constant heart to see;
But when 'twas mouldered into dust,
Now, now, she cried, I follow thee.
My death, my death alone can show
The pure and lasting love I bore :
Accept, O Heaven! of woes like ours,
And let us, let us weep no more.

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,
For trifles eager, positive, and proud;
Deep in the darkness of dull authors bred,
With all their refuse lumbered in his head.

| 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. Botlı 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 filed 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,

There came a ghost to Margaret's door.
The resemblance is striking. Mallet confessed only
(in a note to his ballad) to the following verse in
Fletcher's 'Knight of the Burning Pestle:-

When it was grown to dark midnight,
And all were fast asleep,
In came Margaret's grimly ghost,
And stood at William's feet.

In the first printed copies of Mallet's ballad, the two first lines were nearly the same as the above

When all was wrapt in dark midnight,
And all were fast asleep.

He improved the rhyme by the change; but beautiful as the idea is of night and morning meeting, it may be questioned whether there is not more of superstitious awe and affecting simplicity in the old words.

William and Margaret.

'Twas at the silent solemn hour,
When night and morning meet;
In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,
And stood at William's feet.

Her face was like an April morn
Clad in a wintry cloud;
And clay-cold was her lily hand
That held her sable shroud.

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,
That sips the silver dew;
The rose was budded in her cheek,

Just opening to the view.

But love had, like the canker-worm,
Consumed her early prime;
The rose grew pale, and left her cheek-
She died before her time.

Awake! she cried, thy true love calls,
Come from her midnight grave :
Now let thy pity hear the maid

Thy love refused to save.

This is the dark and dreary hour
When injured ghosts complain;
When yawning graves give up their dead,

To haunt the faithless swain.

Bethink thee, William, of thy fault,
Thy pledge and broken oath!
And give me back my maiden-vow,
And give me back my troth.
Why did you promise love to me,
And not that promise keep?
Why did you swear my eyes were bright,
Yet leave those eyes to weep?