Still shall each kind returning season
Sufficient for our wishes give,

For we will live a life of reason,

And that's the only life to live.

Our name while virtue thus we tender
Shall sweetly sound where'er 'tis spoke,
And all the great ones much shall wonder
How they admire such little folk.

Thro' youth and age in love excelling
We'll hand in hand together tread,

Sweet smiling peace shall crown our dwelling,
And babes, sweet smiling babes, our bed.

How should I love the pretty creatures
Whilst round my knees they fondly clung,
To see them look their mother's features,
To hear 'em lisp their mother's tongue.

And when with envy time transported

Shall think to rob us of our joys;

You'll in your girls again be courted,

And I'll go wooing in my boys.

[PERCY.]

O NANCY, wilt thou go with me,
Nor sigh to leave the flaunting town:
Can silent glens have charms for thee,
The lowly cot and russet gown?
No longer drest in silken sheen,
No longer deck'd with jewels rare,
Say, canst thou quit each courtly scene,
Where thou wert fairest of the fair?

O Nancy! when thou'rt far away,

Wilt thou not cast a wish behind? Say, canst thou face the parching ray, Nor shrink before the wint'ry wind? O can that soft and gentle mien

Extremes of hardship learn to bear. Nor sad regret each courtly scene, Where thou wert fairest of the fair?

O Nancy! canst thou love so true,
Thro' perils keen with me to go,
Or when thy swain mishap shall rue,
To share with him the pang of woe?

Say, should disease or pain befall,

Wilt thou assume the nurse's care, Nor wistful those gay scenes recall Where thou wert fairest of the fair?

M

And when at last thy love shall die,
Wilt thou receive his parting breath?
Wilt thou repress each struggling sigh,
And cheer with smiles the bed of death;
And wilt thou o'er his breathless clay
Strew flowers and drop the tender tear;
Nor then regret those scenes so gay,
Where thou wert fairest of the fair?

ESSAY

ON

INGENIOUS AND WITTY SONGS.

THERE is no product of mental culti

vation for which we are so little indebted to the ancients, as wit. This has been observed in a former Essay, to be the latest growth of the mind; and the ancients had scarcely attained to it, before the deluge of Gothic barbarity broke in, and swept away all the tender plants of literary genius.

Though some of their early, writers. carried sublimity and beauty to their highest perfection, yet were they in general utterly devoid of a just taste for that elegant and delightful artifice of composition termed wit, and their attempts in it were to the highest degree

coarse and unpolished. Ovid had a brilliancy and artificial turn of fancy, which frequently produced true wit, but more frequently that false glitter which is only its counterfeit. Martial advanced so far as to give perfect models of his particular branch of wit, the epigrammatic; yet a prevailing number of faulty pieces demonstrates that he was void of judgment to distinguish the most excellent parts of a faculty which he possessed. By the Lyric poets, wit appears to have been quite unknown or disregarded. Anacreon and Horace, have indeed a gaiety and smartness of sentiment, but extremely different from the turn of thought in such modern pieces as we shall include in the present class.

A taste for true wit soon followed the revival of learning and the fine arts in Europe for, modern literature being founded upon the classical remains of antiquity, had not a tedious gradation to go through, but acquired immediate refinement; and genius awaking from her long slumber, seemed to proceed towards per

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