Nor let my generous soul give way, Too much to serve my friends; Let Reason still controul their sway, And shew where Duty ends.

If to my lot a wife should fall,
May Friendship be our Love;
The Passion, that is transport all,
Does seldom lasting prove:

If lasting, 'tis too great for Peace,
The pleasure's so profuse;

The heart can never be at ease,
Which has too much to lose.

Calm let me estimate this life,
Which I must leave behind,
Nor let fond Passions raise a strife,
To discompose my mind.

When Nature calls, may I steal by,

As rising from a feast;

I've had my fill of life, and why
Should I disturb the rest?

EPITAPH.

STRANGER, approach! and shed a tender tear,
If ever Virtue to thy soul was dear;

If ever Friend in distant climate lost
Unknown to all, or known to few at most,
Thy heart, if ever female sweetness warm'd,
Or lively wit, or strength of reason charm'd,
Or suffering Beauty bade thy sorrows flow,
Here stop a-while to melt at others' woe:
And learn an husband's, brother's, parent's moan
For such a consort, sister, daughter gone.

THOMAS BLACKLOCK.

1721. 1791.

Thomas Blacklock, though born in Scotland, was the son of English parents, his father was a bricklayer: at the age of six mouths he was deprived of his sight by the smallpox; this calamity was counterbalanced by an acute and comprehensive mind, and an amiable disposition; he acquired an early taste for poetry, by hearing it from his father's readings; as he advanced in age, he acquired the Latin, Greek, and French languages, and a knowledge of Philosophy; his poems are very extraordinary pro ductions, and demonstrate the power of genius, to overcome obstacles, which even nature has thrown in its way; the combined powers of his other senses, and the ideas he received through them, enabled him to form such associations, as that of sight would have assisted to supply him with, and it very seldom occurs in reading his works, that any trace of the deficiency of this sense can be discovered. The author of his life says, 'Mr. Black

lock is very descriptive in many parts of his poems; but 'tis easy to be observed, that, where his descriptions are of any length, they are generally not descriptions of things, but of passions.'

His idea of brightness and glory, seems to be that of something which gives pleasure to the eye, as smoothness to the touch, and he endeavoured to explain it thus. 'He took out his glass, and carrying his hand gently backward and forward on the case of it, he said that it gave him an idea of smoothness; then doing the same on the glass, he said that it gave him an idea of much greater smoothness. Now this, says he, we may carry higher and higher in the mind; and the highest idea of smoothness, is my idea of Glory.'-This might puzzle a metaphysician, or provoke his pride to a smile; but few metaphysicians have written so well as this poor blind man. He also said, that a brisk tune was much more like the rays of the sun, than a melancholy one.'

Much of the correctness of his images and epithets, is to be attributed, of course, to imitation of the works of others, though his imitation is not of the commonplace sort; but such as his memory and cultivated mind furnished him with the means of employing. Once he speaks of a sun-beam as something pointed, and the designation of wine in the Epigram is very curious.

FROM A HYMN TO FORTITUDE.

NIGHT, brooding o'er her mute domain,
In awful silence wraps her reign ;
Clouds press on clouds, and, as they rise,
Condense to solid gloom the skies.
Portentous, through the foggy air,
To wake the Demon of despair,
The raven hoarse, and boding owl,
To Hecate! curst anthems howl.
Intent with execrable art,

To burn the veins, and tear the heart,
The witch, unhallow'd bones to raise,
Through funeral vaults and channels strays;
Calls the damn'd shade from every cell,
And adds new labours to their hell.

And, shield me heaven! what hollow sound,
Like fate's dread knell, runs echoing round?
The bell strikes one, that magic hour,
When rising fiends exert their power.
And now, sure now, some cause unblest

Breathes more than horrour thro' my breast: