His horse, which never in that sort The wind did blow, the cloak did fly, Then might all people well discern As hath been said or sung. The dogs did bark, the children screamed, And still, as fast as he drew near, Down ran the wine into the road, Most piteous to be seen, Which made his horse's flanks to smoke But still he seemed to carry weight, Thus all through merry Islington Of Edmonton so gay. And there he threw the wash about On both sides of the way, Just like unto a trundling mop, At Edmonton his loving wife From the balcony spied Her tender husband, wondering much To see how he did ride. Stop, stop, John Gilpin!-Here's the house They all aloud did cry; The dinner waits, and we are tired: Said Gilpin-So am I! But yet his horse was not a whit For why his owner had a house So like an arrow swift he flew, The calender, amazed to see His neighbour in such trim, Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate, And thus accosted him: What news? what news? your tidings tell- Say why bareheaded you are come, Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit, And thus unto the calender I came because your horse would come; My hat and wig will soon be here- The calender, right glad to find Whence straight he came with hat and wig; A hat not much the worse for wear, He held them up, and in his turn That hangs upon your face; Said John, It is my wedding day, So turning to his horse, he said, "Twas for your pleasure you came here, Ah, luckless speech, and bootless boast! And galloped off with all his might, Away went Gilpin, and away Went Gilpin's hat and wig: He lost them sooner than at first; Now Mistress Gilpin, when she saw Into the country far away, She pulled out half-a-crown; And thus unto the youth she said, This shall be yours when you bring back The youth did ride, and soon did meet But not performing what he meant, Away went Gilpin, and away With post-boy scampering in the rear, And all and each that passed that way And now the turnpike gates again And so he did, and won it too, Nor stopped till where he had got up Now let us sing long live the king, WILLIAM HAYLEY. WILLIAM HAYLEY (1745-1820), the biographer of Cowper, wrote various poetical works, which enjoyed great popularity in their day. His principal productions are the Triumphs of Temper (1781), a series of poetical epistles on history, addressed to Gibbon, and Essays on Painting, on Epic Poetry, &c. He produced several unsuccessful tragedies, a novel, and an Essay on Old Maids. A gentleman by education and fortune, and fond of literary communication, Hayley enjoyed the acquaintance of most of the eminent men of his times. His overstrained sensibility and romantic tastes exposed him to ridicule, yet he was an amiable and benevolent man. It was through his personal application to Pitt that Cowper received his pension. He had (what appears to have been to him a sort of melancholy pride and satisfaction) the task of writing epitaphs for most of his friends, including Mrs Unwin and Cowper. His life of Cowper appeared in 1803, and three years afterwards it was enlarged by a supplement. Hayley prepared memoirs of his own life, which he disposed of to a publisher on condition of his receiving an annuity for the remainder of his life. This annuity he enjoyed for twelve years. The memoirs appeared in two fine quarto volumes, but they failed to attract attention. Hayley had outlived his popularity, and his smooth but often unmeaning lines had vanished like chaff before the vigorous and natural outpourings of the modern muse. specimen of this once much-praised poet, we subjoin some lines on the death of his mother, which had the merit of delighting Gibbon, and with which Mr Southey has remarked Cowper would sympathise deeply : As a [Tribute to a Mother, on her Death.] [From the Essay on Epic Poetry."] For me who feel, whene'er I touch the lyre, My talents sink below my proud desire; Who often doubt, and sometimes credit give, When friends assure me that my verse will live; Whom health, too tender for the bustling throng, Led into pensive shade and soothing song; Whatever fortune my unpolished rhymes May meet in present or in future times, Let the blest art my grateful thoughts employ, And magnify with irritation's zeal, If heartfelt pain e'er led me to accuse Inscription on the Tomb of Cowper. Ye who with warmth the public triumph feel Of talents dignified by sacred zeal, Here, to devotion's bard devoutly just, Pay your fond tribute due to Cowper's dust! England, exulting in his spotless fame, Ranks with her dearest sons his favourite name. Sense, fancy, wit, suffice not all to raise So clear a title to affection's praise: His highest honours to the heart belong; His virtues formed the magic of his song. On the Tomb of Mrs Unwin. Trusting in God with all her heart and mind, This woman proved magnanimously kind; Endured affliction's desolating hail, And watched a poet through misfortune's vale. For all who read his verse revere her name. DR ERASMUS DARWIN, DR ERASMUS DARWIN, an ingenious philosophical, though fanciful poet, was born at Elston, near Newark, in 1731. Having passed with credit through a course of education at St John's college, Cambridge, he applied himself to the study of physic, and took his degree of bachelor in medicine at Edinburgh in 1755. He then commenced practice in Nottingham, but meeting with little encouragement, he removed to Lichfield, where he long continued a successful and distinguished physician. In 1757 Dr Darwin married an accomplished lady of Lichfield, Miss Mary Howard, by whom he had five children, two of whom died in infancy. The lady herself died in 1770; and after her decease, Darwin seems to have commenced his botanical and literary pursuits. He was at first afraid that the reputation of a poet would injure him in his profession, but being firmly established in the latter capacity, he at length ventured on publication. At this time he lived in a picturesque villa in the neighbourhood of Lichfield, furnished with a grotto and fountain, and here he began the formation of a botanic garden. The spot he has described as 'adapted to love-scenes, and as being thence a proper residence for the modern goddess of botany.' In 1781 appeared the first part of Darwin's Botanic Garden, a poem in glittering and polished heroic verse, designed to describe, adorn, and allegorise the Linnæan system of botany. The Rosicrucian doctrine of gnomes, sylphs, nymphs, and salamanders, was adopted by the poet, as affording a proper machinery for a botanic poem, as it is probable they were originally the names of hieroglyphic figures representing the elements.' The novelty and ingenuity of Darwin's attempt attracted much attention, and rendered him highly popular. In the same year the poet was called to attend an aged gentleman, Colonel Sachevell Pole of Radbourne-hall, near Derby. An intimacy was thus formed with Mrs Pole, and the colonel dying, the poetical physician in a few months afterwards, in 1781, married the fair widow, who possessed a jointure of L.600 per annum. Darwin was now released from all prudential fears and restraints as to the cultivation of his poetical talents, and he went on adding to his floral gallery. In 1789 appeared the second part of his poem, containing the Loves of the Plants. Ovid having, he said, transmuted men, women, and even gods and goddesses into trees and flowers, he had undertaken, by similar art, to restore some of them to their original animality, after having remained prisoners so long in their respective vegetable mansions: From giant oaks, that wave their branches dark, To the dwarf moss that clings upon their bark, What beaux and beauties crowd the gaudy groves, And woo and win their vegetable loves.* *Linnæus, the celebrated Swedish naturalist, has demonstrated, that all flowers contain families of males or females, or both; and on their marriage, has constructed his invaluable system of botany.-Darwin. How snowdrops cold, and blue-eyed harebells blend Roll on, ye stars! exult in youthful prime, So the sad mother at the noon of night, From bloody Memphis stole her silent flight; And broke, cursed slavery! thy iron bands. Hark! heard ye not that piercing cry, Who right the injured and reward the brave, The effect of the whole, however, was artificial, and destitute of any strong or continuous interest. The Rosicrucian machinery of Pope was united to the delineation of human passions and pursuits, and became the auxiliary of wit and satire; but who can sympathise with the loves and metamorphoses of the plants? Darwin had no sentiment or pathos, except in very brief episodical passages, and even his eloquent and splendid versification, for want of variety of cadence, becomes monotonous and fatiguing. There is no repose, no cessation from the glare of his bold images, his compound epithets, and hightoned melody. He had attained to rare perfection in the mechanism of poetry, but wanted those impulses of soul and sense, and that guiding taste which were required to give it vitality, and direct it to its true objects. The material images of Darwin are often less happy than the above, being both extravagant and gross, and grouped together without any visible connexion or dependence one on the other. He has such a throng of startling metaphors and descriptions, the latter drawn out to an excessive length and tiresome minuteness, that nothing is left to the reader's imagination, and the whole passes like a glittering pageant before the eye, exciting wonder, but without touching the heart or feelings. As the poet was then past fifty, the exuberance of his fancy, and his peculiar choice of subjects, are the more remarkable. A third part of the Botanic Garden' was added in 1792. Darwin next published his Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life, part of which he had written many years previously. This is a curious and original physiological treatise, evincing an inquiring and attentive study of natural phenomena. Dr Thomas Brown, Professor Dugald Stewart, Paley, and others, But thou whose mind the well-attempered ray have, however, successfully combated the positions of Darwin, particularly his theory which refers in- Of taste and virtue lights with purer day; stinct to sensation. In 1801 our author came forward Whose finer sense with soft vibration owns with another philosophical disquisition, entitled With sweet responsive sympathy of tones; Phytologia, or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gar-So the fair flower expands its lucid form dening. He also wrote a short treatise on Female To meet the sun, and shuts it to the storm; Education, intended for the instruction and assist- For thee my borders nurse the fragrant wreath, ance of part of his own family. This was Darwin's My fountains murmur, and my zephyrs breathe; last publication. He had always been a remarkably Smooths his fine down, to charm thy curious eye; Slow slides the painted snail, the gilded fly temperate man. Indeed he totally abstained from all fermented and spirituous liquors, and in his On twinkling fins my pearly pinions play, Botanic Garden he compares their effects to that or win with sinuous train their trackless way; of the Promethean fire. He was, however, subject Form with ingenious bill the pensile nest, My plumy pairs in gay embroidery dressed, to inflammation as well as gout, and a sudden attack To love's sweet notes attune the listening dell, carried him off in his seventy-first year, on the 18th And echo sounds her soft symphonious shell. of April 1802. Shortly after his death was pub lished a poem, The Temple of Nature, which he had ready for the press, the preface to the work being dated only three months before his death. The Temple of Nature aimed, like the Botanic Garden, to amuse by bringing distinctly to the imagination the beautiful and sublime images of the operations of nature. It is more metaphysical than its predecessor, and more inverted in style and diction. [Invocation to the Goddess of Botany.] [From The Botanic Garden."] The poetical reputation of Darwin was as bright and transient as the plants and flowers which formed the subject of his verse. Cowper praised his song for its rich embellishments, and said it was as 'strong' as it was 'learned and sweet.' 'There is a fashion in poetry,' observes Sir Walter Scott, which, without increasing or diminishing the real value of the materials moulded upon it, does wonders in facilitating its currency while it has novelty, and is often found to impede its reception when the mode has passed away. This has been the fate of Darwin. Besides his coterie at Lichfield, the poet of Flora had considerable influence on the poetical taste of his own day. He may be traced in the 'Pleasures of Hope' of Campbell, and in other young poets of that time. The attempt to unite science with the inspirations of the Muse, was in itself an attractive novelty, and he supported it with various and high powers. His command of fancy, of poetical language, dazzling metaphors, and sonorous versification, was well seconded by his curious and multifarious knowledge. And if with thee some hapless maid should stray, Winds of the north! restrain your icy gales, Stretched o'er the marshy vale yon willowy mound, The beauteous Egle felt the envenomed dart, [Destruction of Sennacherib's Army by a Pestilential on timorous step, or numbered with the dead ; Wind.]. Loud shrieks of matrons thrilled the troubled air, Calls to her bosom all its scattered rays, [Death of Eliza at the Battle of Minden.] [From the Loves of the Plants."] So stood Eliza on the wood-crowned height, O'er Minden's plain, spectatress of the fight. Sought with bold eye amid the bloody strife Her dearer self, the partner of her life; From hill to hill the rushing host pursued, And viewed his banner, or believed she viewed. Pleased with the distant roar, with quicker tread Fast by his hand one lisping boy she led; And one fair girl amid the loud alarm Slept on her kerchief, cradled by her arm; While round her brows bright beams of Honour dart, And Love's warm eddies circle round her heart. Near and more near the intrepid beauty pressed, Saw through the driving smoke his dancing crest ; Saw on his helm, her virgin hands inwove, Bright stars of gold, and mystic knots of love; Heard the exulting shout,They run! they run!' 'Great God!' she cried, 'He's safe! the battle's won!' A ball now hisses through the airy tides, (Some fury winged it, and some demon guides!) Parts the fine locks her graceful head that deck, Wounds her fair ear, and sinks into her neck; The red stream, issuing from her azure veins, Dyes her white veil, her ivory bosom stains. 'Ah me!' she cried, and sinking on the ground, Kissed her dear babes, regardless of the wound; 'Oh, cease not yet to beat, thou vital urn! Wait, gushing life, oh wait my love's return!' Hoarse barks the wolf, the vulture screams from far! The angel pity shuns the walks of war! Oh spare, ye war-hounds, spare their tender age; On me, on me,' she cried, exhaust your rage!' Then with weak arms her weeping babes caressed, And, sighing, hid them in her blood-stained vest. From tent to tent the impatient warrior flies, Fear in his heart and frenzy in his eyes; |