however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it nearer me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me

-I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture.

I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferred.Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish: in thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood he had seen no sun, no moon in all that timenor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed thro his lattice. His children

But here my heart began to bleed and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.

He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed: a little calendar of small sticks were laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down-shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle-He gave a deep sigh-I saw 'the iron enter into his soul-I burst into tears-I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn. STERNE.

CHAP. III.

CORPORAL TRIM'S ELOQUENCE.

-MY young master in London is dead, said Obadiah

-Here is sad news, Trim, cried Susannah, wiping her eyes as Trim stepped into the kitchen,-master Bobby is dead.

I lament for him from my heart and my soul, said Trim, fetching a sigh-poor creature ! poor boy!poor gentleman !

He was alive last Whitsuntide, said the coachman.Whitsuntide! alas! cried Trim, extending his right arm, and falling instantly into the same attitude in which he read the sermon, what is Whitsuntide, Jonathan, (for that was the coachman's name) or Shrovetide, or any tide or time past, to this? Are we not here now, continued the corporal, (striking the end of his stick perpendicular upon the floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability) and are we not (dropping his hat upon the ground) gone! In a moment!-It was infinitely striking! Susannah burst into a flood of tears. We are not stocks and stones-Jonathan, Obadiah, the cook-maid, all melted. The foolish fat scullion herself, who was scouring a fish-kettle upon her knees, was roused with it. The whole kitchen crouded about the corporal.

"Are we not here now, and gone in a moment?" There was nothing in the sentence-it was one of your self-evident truths we have the advantage of hearing every day; and if Trim had not trusted more to his hat, than his head, he had made nothing at all of it.

"Are we not here now, continued the corporal, and are " we not" (dropping his hat plump upon the ground and pausing, before he pronounced the word) "gone! in a moment ?" The descent of the hat was as if a heavy

lump of clay had been kneaded into the crown of it.Nothing could have expressed the sentiment of mortality, of which it was the type and forerunner, like it; his hand seemed to vanish from under it, it fell dead, the corporal's eye fixed upon it, as upon a corpse, and Susannah burst into a flood of tears.

STERNE.

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CHAP. IV.

THE MAN OF ROSS.

-ALL our praises why should Lords engross ?
Rise, honest Muse! and sing the Man of Ross :
Pleas'd Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.
Who hung with woods yon mountains sultry brow?
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow ?
Not to the skies in useless columns tost,
Or in proud falls magnificently lost,
But clear and artless, pouring through the plain,
Health to the sick, and solace to the swain.
Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose ?
Who taught that heav'n-directed spire to rise ?
"The Man of Ross," each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor oer'spread!
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread:
He feeds yon alms-house, neat, but void of state,
Where age and want sit smiling at the gate :
Him portion'd maids, apprentic'd orphans blest,
The young who labour, and the old who rest.
Is any sick? The Man of Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes, and gives.
Is there a variance ? Enter but his door,
Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more.

Y

Despairing quacks with ourses fled the place,
And vile attornies, now a useless race.
Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue
What all so wish, but want the power to do!
Oh say, what sums that gen'rous hand supply?
What mines, to swell that boundless charity ?

Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear,
This man possess'd-five hundred pounds a year.
Blush Grandeur, blush! proud Courts, withdraw your blaze!
Ye little stars! hide your diminish'd rays.

And what! no monument, inscription, stone?
His race, his form, his name almost unknown!
Who builds a Church to God, and not to Fame,
Will never mark the marble with his Name:
Go search it there, where to be born and die,
Of rich and poor makes all the history;
Enough, that Virtue fill'd the space between;
Prov'd by the ends of being to have been.

POPE.

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CHAP. V.

THE COUNTRY CLERGYMAN.

NEAR yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd, And still where many a garden flower grows wild; There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose. A man he was, to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year; Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wish'd to change his place ; Unpractis'd he to fawn, or seek for power, By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour;

Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize,
More skill'd to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but reliev'd their paiu,
The long remember'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay;
Sate by his fire, and talk'd the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won.
Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learn'd to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe ;
Careless their merits, or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And even his failings lean'd to Virtue's side :
But in his duty prompt at every call,
He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all.
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries,
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies;
He try'd each art, reprov'd each dull delay,
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way.

Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay'd,
The reveren'd champion stood. At his controul,
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last falt'ring accents whisper'd praise.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorn'd the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools who came to seoff, remain'd to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With ready zeal each honest rustic ran;
E'en children follow'd with endearing wile,

And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile )