dignity of its subject for its sole support. Mason, on the contrary, who was more able to have sustained such a style, adopted a rich and gorgeous manner, acting upon the opinion, that, in a language wherein Shakspeare by native genius had attained the highest place, an aspirant might with most reason hope to succeed through an elaborate imitation of Attic art.* Lyric poems, of the most opposite kind, but which have become equally popular, were produced by Gray and Collins: those of the former were the highlyfinished compositions of a patient and fastidious artist; those of the latter, the effusions of an ardent, poetical spirit. And while Percy and Warton recalled the rising generation to the school of Spenser and of the Elizabethan age, Mr. Hayley led the way to a renewed intercourse with the literature of those countries from which the writers in that illustrious age had drawn so largely, and with such success. The early part of George the Third's reign was distinguished by the great but fleeting popularity of Churchill, who, squandering happiness and character in his reckless course, poured forth verses upon the most worthless subjects, with a facility and vigour of which, since Oldham and Dryden, there had been no example. A singular dearth of celebrated names ensues, for of those who should have been the flower of their generation, the most promising were nipt in the bud. To speak of Chatterton the marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in its pride,' is to touch upon a name, from which time neither has taken, nor will take any of its interest. Michael Bruce is known, thanks to good Dr. Anderson, for giving the remains of this affectionate and hopeful youth a place in his edition of the British Poets.' But when Emily is mentioned, and Russell, and Bampfylde, how many are there who will ask, what have they written? and where are their works to be found? They have written little, for 'In the morning of hope, in the blossom of virtue and genius, but little as they have left, that little will be found after many days. The single poem of Emily which remains is upon Death; it was written for a Cambridge prize, and failed to obtain it, that of Porteus (afterwards the Bishop) being successful. We should say they were the two most promising and vigorous productions which were ever elicited by a prize-subject, if we did not recollect the 'Aboriginal Britons' of Dr. Richards. The successful piece was the better planned and fairly deserved the prize, but there was more This he tells us in an elegy addressed to Hurd, which was prefixed to 'Caractacus,' as dedicatory of that poem. VOL. XXXV. NO. LXIX. originality originality and greater power in Emily's. Vicesimus Knox preserved it in the first edition of his Elegant Extracts;' but it was cast out we believe from the later ones certainly not to make room for anything better. The poems of Russell and Bampfylde were included in the collection edited by Mr. Park some twenty years ago; a collection which unfortunately was not completed according to the design of its editor, (the most competent to whom such a task has ever yet been assigned,) but which has the great merit of being the only one in which proper, or indeed any, attention was paid to the correctness of the text. There are many writers of that age from whose poems a sweet anthology might be culled, but from the remains of Russell and Bampfylde not a line can be spared. Emily, who seems, in some degree, like Kirke White, to have had a forefeeling of his own early decease, has beautifully described the evlavacia of a good man falling asleep when the number of his days is full Thrice happy who the blameless road along Of honest praise, hath reached the vale of death! His better actions, to the parting breath Free and unbounded flies the disembodied soul.' He might have found a topic not less suited to the best purposes of poetry, (that of soothing the heart and elevating and purifying its desires,) in the early death of such gifted persons as himself. Premature such deaths are called in common and natural language, and premature, according to the ordinary course of nature, they must needs appear, and are: but mournful as it is thus to behold the dearest, and fairest, and noblest of our earthly hopes cut off, the religious mind acquiesces in the dispensations of Providence, even while suffering under them to the height of grief, and feels in that grief itself sufficient reason for acknowledging that happy are they who die in their youth. It was the prayer of a wise and good man, that God would be pleased to make him better, and take him when he was at the best. There are cases in which the lessons of a long life might not be so impressive as the example of a brief one. Early death invests with a peculiar sanctity the objects of our affection,and of our admiration also, which partakes of affection whenever it is worthily fixed. The strong and influential interest which has been excited by Chatterton and Kirke White arises as much from the thought of what they might have produced, had their lives been prolonged, prolonged, as from the remains which they have left; in the former instance, perhaps, more so. Herbert Knowles, if he had published volume after volume, would never have established a surer claim to remembrance than he has made good by his churchyard stanzas. * It was the affecting complaint of the poet Daniel in his old age†, that he had written too much and lived too long. Too much he has not written for his after-reputation, whatever he had done for present acceptance; for any general collection of the English poets, which should not contain the whole of his poems, would be incomplete. The fault of writing too little is one which has not so often been laid to a poet's charge. Dr. Sayers is to be charged with it, as will presently be seen. So might Crabbe have been, during a silence of more than twenty years,—but the crab-tree hath borne well since, and its verjuice is of a strong body, and will keep. Beattie would be liable to the same accusation, if his other verses did not seem to prove that he had exhausted himself in the 'Minstrel.' No such excuse can be offered for the author of 'Lewesdon Hill,' and he, it is to be feared, must stand condemned by posterity for not having written enough. Beattie, and Crabbe and Crowe were in the vigour of their faculties, when Hayley was suffered to be the popular or fashionable poet of the day. Mason, also, was living, and, in one sense, flourishing; for he was in the enjoyment of a high and well-won reputation, and of preferment fully equal to the wants and wishes of a wise and moderate man. What Mason's wishes may have been we know not, for there is no man of equal eminence in that age, of whom his friends have thought proper to let the world know so little. The only collective edition of his works has neither life, nor biographical notice of the author, nor preface, nor prefatory advertisement of any kind; an omission which, if there be no intention of supplying it, must be ascribed to a want of respect in his representatives. Mason would have done greater things if he had been less successful at the commencement of his career. His Elfrida and his Caractacus met with the applause which they well deserved. They succeeded even in representation, (little as this might have been expected,) and so well, that they were represented at the provincials theatres. A story is remembered in the navy, of some unlucky Captain (not of Nelson's school), who at the close of a successful action, dissuaded the admiral from pursuing his victory, by saying that the day had been sufficiently glorious. * They are printed in our twenty-first volume, p. 397. + But age hath done to me this wrong, To make me write too much, and live too long.' In four volumes. 1811. One of the writer's earliest recollections is that of seeing Elfrida performed by Mrs. Siddons, upon the Bath stage. 0 2 By By some such feeling Mason appears to have been seduced into habits of literary indolence. His desire of celebrity, and his fear that it had injured, by inflating him, are confessed with great truth and beauty in one of his elegies: 'Too long, alas, my inexperienced youth, Misled by flattering Fortune's specious tale, The huddling brook, cool cave, and whispering vale. Too oft the public ear has heard my lays, Too much its vain applause has touch'd my heart.' He lived nearly forty years after these lines were written, and if it appeared that this long portion of life had been devoted to the studies and duties of his profession, we might commend the motive, although we might doubt the necessity for such a sacrifice. But his duties left him ample leisure, and his professional writings are few and unimportant. It was because he thought his reputation 'sufficiently glorious,' that he made no endeavour to advance it. There was no decay of power. The English Garden, indeed, though far from worthless, is a bad poem; but his Curan and Argentile evinces that he might have succeeded as brilliantly in the romantic as in the classical drama, if he had applied to it the same determination of mind; and had he followed on in this course, he might have acquired the honour of reviving English tragedy, which was reserved for Joanna Baillie. The well-known satires which are ascribed to him are not here adduced, as exhibiting a spirit and vigour equal to the promise of his youth, because he never acknowledged them himself, nor have they been incorporated into the posthumous edition of his works. Without reference to these, we may discern in all his later pieces, few as they are, proofs of improved taste rather than of declining genius; they have the strength, without the effort, of his earlier compositions--the dignity, without the pomp-the beauty, without the fictitious ornaments. A more pleasing picture of placid and green old age has seldom been transmitted to us than he has left in his Anniversary Sonnets on his own Birthday, the last of which was written a few weeks only before his death:-We quote that for the year 1795. A plaintive sonnet flowed from Milton's pen When Time had stolen his three-and-twentieth year: Trouble and toil, approach not yet too near; Still Still round my sheltered lawn I pleased can stray, Which musing gratitude delights to sing, And Hope, the cherub of unwearied wing.' When Sayers was preparing to come forward upon the theatre of public life, Mason was considered as belonging to a former generation his name was usually coupled with that of his friend Gray; and Gray having long been dead, Mason himself, out of the circle of his own friends, was hardly known to be among the living: they seemed to have taken leave of the world together. A discriminating reader may trace in the productions of every poet the influence of his predecessors in the art, and more especially of the immediate ones, who have set their form and pressure upon the taste or humour of the age. Mason, perhaps, produced less effect upon his contemporaries and successors than any other poet of equal reputation: the influence of his writings may, however, be perceived in Sayers, but as acting upon a generous, not a servile, mind. Had he been one of the mocking-birds of Parnassus, this was not the note which he would have caught, for it was no longer in season; and there were at that time three living writers, each of whom was more likely to have seduced an aspirant of common parts into the sheep-track of imitation. Such of our readers as recollect what the state of our literature was five-and-thirty years ago, will not be surprised at seeing the names of Cowper, Darwin, and Merry, classed together, as having been then each in full sail upon the stream of celebrity, which very soon floated two of them, by a short cut, into the dead sea. It would not be possible to name three poets who are more curiously dissimilar to each other. Merry was the most remarkable for the success and brevity of his career. Other reputations have been as sudden, and as short-lived; but we can call to mind none which was so unaccountable, and which has so completely passed away. Certain it is, that by far the greater part of our readers will have no other knowledge of him or his name than what they may have learnt from the Baviad and Mæviad. One might suspect, at first, that his poems had been written as an experiment upon what Wilkes called the nonsense of the English public, for they are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing; he wrote to the ear, and to the ear only; and if their real origin could now be known, it would most probably be found that he was led into this rhapsodical and senseless vein, by emulating the effusions of the Italian improvvisatori in a language which requires for its poetry something more than rhythm and rhymes. He im posed, |