let

*

have been easily accomplished. The king's immediate words were, "Fy, strike him, laigh, because he has a pyne + doubupon him." The cruel word being given, Ramsey having his dagger drawn, struck with it the almost prostrate young and wounded him in the head and neck. The king then dragged the unresisting youth to the stair head.

man,

The Earl Gowry was soon expected to arrive, and the king was secreted in a closet by his party; but, before he retired, he gave them his cloak, which was thrown over the dead body. Upon the earl's arrival, he inquired for the king with great anxiety, and was directed to the body on the floor, which was covered with the cloak; he instantly exclaimed, "Ah! woe me, that the king has been killed in my house!" Sir John Ramsey immediately pierced him to the heart with a sword or dagger.

The fruits of this double murder were to be, that the king would get rid of a powerful and popular antagonist to his arbitrary schemes, and his needy courtiers would be more devoted to his service by the distribution among them of Earl Gowry's forfeited estates.

Of all diseases in a public weal,

No one more dangerous, and hard to heal,
(Except a tyrant king,) than when great might
Is trusted to the hands that take delight
To bathe and paddle in the blood of those,
Whom jealousies, and not just cause oppose:
For when, as haughty power is conjoin'd,
Unto the will of a distemper'd mind,
Whate'er it can, it will, and what it will,
It in itself hath power to fulfill:

What mischief, then, can linger unattempted!
What base attempts can happen unprevented!

Quarles.

EPIGRAM.

From the ripe vintage man makes wine;
And from the vintage, wine makes man :

Thus wine and man together shine,

As man and wine together can.

* Low.

J. R. P.

+ Plaited.

I know not whether an argument may be necessary for such a poem. It may be proper, however, to say, that the solitary poet, retiring from the pleasures of social life, is here supposed to contemplate the powers of Fancy and the Passions. In doing this he describes the imaginary beings of the Air, the Earth, the Rivulets, and the Ocean; and then Avarice, Vengeance, and Love.

Light spread the summer shadows o'er the dew
That bends the green leaf it impearls: the beam
Fades faint and fainter from its saffron hue;

And o'er the grey sky throws a parting gleam,
Then sinks beyond the hills: a gentle breeze
Steals, trembling o'er the margin of the stream,
Amid the rustling reeds: the ebbing seas
Throb on the sands, reluctantly subsiding:
Yon cavern, overhung with dark bough'd trees,
Moans sullenly.

Come ye, in youth confiding,
Whose morn of being is as proudly gay,

As when, the chariot of the sun misguiding,
Phaeton pour'd the rapid rising day

Profusely forth; and vales, mountains, and waves,
Intensely splendid with the scatter'd ray,
Brighten'd with instant ruin ;-

Mid these caves,

While Silence on the darken'd waters spreads
His heavy wings; as when, o'er charnell'd graves,
He sits with Death, and the lone wanderer dreads
To breathe beside him :

Hither walk with me!
Not midnight balls, nor banquets, nor soft beds,
Where ye, as though ye graspt reality,
Laugh, without thought, in fullness of delight!

Can so secure your souls from agony,

As the mute converse of the solemn Night, Who makes a pause in life-and throws her veil O'er the bewild'ring objects of our sight,

And gives the conscious mind to feel how frail Are all things but itself!

O! I have knownI, who now bid these cavern-shadows hail!The path, where pleasure, wantonly, had strewn Transports and hopes, like flowrets freshly cull'd :Seen, there, a bosom throb beneath à zone,

That claspt such wealth of beauty as annull'd The claims of Cupid's mother: there have heard Accents half breath'd in sighs, 'mid smiles that lull'd The tremors of the heart that almost fear'd Its ecstacy of joy.

Yet like the ray,

Its day-blaze done, those pleasures disappear'd,
And left me to myself; conscious that they
Were no part of me; and that my firm mind,-
O'er which they held a short seductive sway,
They could but dazzle for awhile-not blind!
Day and the world! I fly from your controul,
To darkness and to freedom; and I find

A world, o'er which I reign within my soul!
Inhabited by winged thoughts, that wait
My high behests: beings of power to roll
Th' ensphered orbs of heaven; and antedate
The future, and bring back the time gone by,
In scorn of all the fancied laws of fate,

That make men tremble.

Nor will they deny

To come, with sylphid forms, in groups around.

Those, in the azure mantles of the sky,

The golden plenty of their locks unbound,

Like the loose star-beams, as they spread their wings, Move in aërial dances, to the sound

Of the eternal harmony.

In rings

Others, in purest verdure robed, repose
Upon the dewy earth; and each one sings

A short, sweet lay; and doth, in turn, disclose
Each one repeating still, that sweet, short lay—
In her rais'd hand, some violet or rose ;

Then each, in turn, droops down, and dies away.

And there are others, who, with liquid tread,
Sport on the banks of riv'lets, and display

Their silver-selvidged skirts, that, sparkling, shed
A playful sheen, beside some water-fall:
Then o'er the pebblets of the streamlets's bed,
On airy bubblets bounding, one and all,

Glance they along through many a channell'd glade,
As though they heard their sister wood-nymphs' call,
Who stand confest beside the forest shade,
With beamy eyes, and chaplet-circled brows.

And some there are, who their bright ringlets braid
With pearl and coral; and in golden prows
Ride on the heaving billows of the main ;
And as the spray breaks show'ry o'er the bows,
Pour from their vocal shells so wild a strain,
That e'en the wilder whistlings of the blast,
That curves the enraged surges, and would fain
Rend the light silken sail from the bent mast,
Seem blended with the harmony.

All these

Are thy bright people, Fancy!-thou, who hast

Power o'er many a sphere, where rocks, woods, seas, Mountains, and floods, clouds, orbs of light, and skies, Are formed into new worlds, when thou dost please To bless the midnight of thy votaries,

And share with them thy realm.

Delightful in their rich varieties,

Nor these alone,

Obey me-Lo! before the mental throne,

At my command, th' obedient Passions bend,
As if they would the tyranny atone,

With which they dare, mid the day-world, rend
The tortured bosom ;-for, they here behold
The soul, in its sublimity, extend

Its mighty energies-its force unfold

Divinely calm and unassailable!

What wouldst thou, Avarice, now? Thy tarnish'd gold
Is here as valueless, as in the cell

Of the lone hermit-nay as in the tomb
Of him, from whose decrepid fingers fell

The useless dross, that in the hour of doom
Could buy not one pulsation-not one gasp-
When the eye, dreading the impending gloom,

Glared wide and wild, and vacant !-Thou may'st clasp,
Pale Avarice, with venom'd fangs the breast,
That fears mankind-fears poverty's fell grasp―
And fears itself within itself unblest;
But not the soul, that knows itself and thee!
Hence-hence-and by some sordid heir carest,
Yield thy vile spoils to Pride and Luxury.

And now, pernicious Vengeance, who dost rage,
E'en in my dreams;-what wouldst thou now with me?
Thinkst thou thy petty clamours can engage
Me conscious of a separated life?

Free from the feverish warfare thou dost wage,
When day-born malice, in its mischiefs rife,
Makes man hate man: I know it and despise
The base contention-the degrading strife!
What hath he to revenge, whose mind doth rise
Above the low terrene!-Whose lofty seat
Is likest his, who mid the clear blue skies
Rests on some mountain top: under his feet
Flashes the lightning, and the thunder roars,
And, far beneath, the echoing vales repeat,
Along the hollow rocks and distant shores,
Reduplicated peals!-So, midnight-veil'd,
The tranquil Soul the spheres of thought explores:
And never heeds the vap'ry threats, exhaled
From injury and violence below.

Sublime it sits, in darkness, unassail'd,

Nor asks for vengeance where it dreads no foe!