loves of Javan and Zillah, the translation of Enoch, age of eighty-three. A collected edition of his and the final deliverance of the little band of works, with autobiographical and illustrative patriarch families from the hand of the giants, matter, was issued in 1841 in four volumes, and are sweet and touching, and elevated by pure and Memoirs of his Life and Writings have been lofty feeling. Connected with some patriotic in-published by two of his friends, John Holland and dividuals in his own neighbourhood in many a James Everett. A tone of generous and enplan for lessening the sum of human misery at lightened morality pervades all the writings of home and abroad,' our author next published this poet. He was the enemy of the slave-trade Thoughts on Wheels (1817), directed against state and of every form of oppression, and the warm lotteries; and The Climbing Boy's Soliloquies, friend of every scheme of philanthropy and impublished about the same time, in a work written provement. The pious and devotional feelings by different authors, to aid in effecting the aboli- | displayed in his early effusions colour all his tion, at length happily accomplished, of the cruel poetry. In description, however, he is not less and unnatural practice of employing boys in happy: and in his Greenland and Pelican Island sweeping chimneys. In 1819 he published Green- there are passages of great beauty, evincing a land, a poem in five cantos, containing a sketch refined taste and judgment in the selection of his of the ancient Moravian Church, its revival in the materials. His late works had more vigour and eighteenth century, and the origin of the missions variety than those by which he first became disby that people to Greenland in 1733. The poem, tinguished. Indeed, his fame was long confined as published, is only a part of the author's original to what is termed the religious world, till he plan, but the beauty of its polar descriptions and shewed, by his cultivation of different styles of episodes recommended it to public favour. The poetry, that his depth and sincerity of feeling, the only other long poem by Mr Montgomery is The simplicity of his taste, and the picturesque beauty Pelican Island, suggested by a passage in Captain of his language, were not restricted to purely Flinders's voyage to Terra Australis, describing spiritual themes. His smaller poems enjoy a the existence of the ancient haunts of the pelican popularity almost equal to those of Moore, which, in the small islands on the coast of New Holland. | though differing widely in subject, they resemble The work is in blank verse, in nine short cantos, in their musical flow, and their compendious and the narrative is supposed to be delivered by happy expression and imagery. an imaginary being who witnesses the series of events related, after the whole has happened. The poem abounds in minute and delicate description of natural phenomena—has great felicity of diction and expression-and altogether possesses more of the power and fertility of the master than any other of the author's works. Besides the works we have enumerated, Mr Montgomery threw off a number of small effusions, published in different periodicals, and short translations from Dante and Petrarch. On his retirement in 1825 from the 'invidious station' of newspaper editor, which he had maintained for more than thirty years, through good report and evil report, his friends and neighbours of Sheffield, of every shade of political and religious distinction, invited him to a public entertainment, at which the late Earl Fitzwilliam presided. There the happy and grateful poet ran through the story of his life even from his boyish days,' when he came amongst them, friendless and a stranger, from his retirement at Fulneck among the Moravian brethren, by whom he was educated in all but knowledge of the world. He spoke with pardonable pride of the success which had crowned his labours as an author. 'Not, indeed,' he said, 'with fame and fortune, as these were lavished on my greater contemporaries, in comparison with whose magnificent possessions on the British Parnassus my small plot of ground is no more than Naboth's vineyard to Ahab's kingdom; but it is my own; it is no copyhold; I borrowed it, I leased it from none. Every foot of it I enclosed from the common myself; and I can say that not an inch which I had once gained have I ever lost.' In 1830 and 1831 Mr Montgomery was selected to deliver a course of lectures at the Royal Institution on Poetry and General Literature, which he prepared for the press, and published in 1833. A pension of £200 per annum was, at the instance of Sir Robert Peel, conferred upon Mr Montgomery, which he enjoyed till his death in 1854, at the ripe Greenland. 'Tis sunset; to the firmament serene 1 The term ice-blink is generally applied by mariners to the nocturnal illumination in the heavens, which denotes to them the proximity of ice-mountains. In this place a description is attempted which has been long distinguished by this peculiar name by the of the most stupendous accumulation of ice in the known world, Danish navigators.-MONTGOMERY. The stars, in their nocturnal vigils, rest Like signal-fires on its illumined crest; The gliding moon around the ramparts wheels, To undermine it through a thousand caves; Rent from its roof, though thundering fragments oft From age to age, in air, o'er sea, on land, Hark! through the calm and silence of the scene, Slow, solemn, sweet, with many a pause between, Celestial music swells along the air! No! 'tis the evening-hymn of praise and prayer And, 'midst the songs that seraph-minstrels sing, Now heard from Shetland's azure bound-are known Then to his eye, whose instant glance pervades Heaven's heights, earth's circle, hell's profoundest shades, Is there a group more lovely than those three They sleep; but memory wakes; and dreams array Night in a lively masquerade of day ; The land they seek, the land they leave behind, On shore, at sea, by fire, by flood, by storm; 'Tis morn: the bathing moon her lustre shrouds ; 1 The first Christian missionaries to Greenland. Where is the vessel? Shining through the light, Night. Night is the time for rest; How sweet, when labours close, To gather round an aching breast The curtain of repose, Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head Upon our own delightful bed! Night is the time for dreams; The gay romance of life, When truth that is, and truth that seems, Blend in fantastic strife; Ah! visions less beguiling far Than waking dreams by daylight are! Night is the time for toil; To plough the classic field, Its wealthy furrows yield; Night is the time to weep; To wet with unseen tears Those graves of memory where sleep Hopes that were angels in their birth, Night is the time to watch; The full moon's earliest glance, Night is the time for care Brooding on hours misspent, To see the spectre of despair Come to our lonely tent; Like Brutus, 'midst his slumbering host, Summoned to die by Cæsar's ghost. Night is the time to think; Then from the eye the soul Night is the time to pray; Our Saviour oft withdrew To desert mountains far away; So will his followers do; Steal from the throng to haunts untrod, Night is the time for death; The Pelican Island. Light as a flake of foam upon the wind, And moved at will along the yielding water. Entranced in contemplation, vague yet sweet, It closed, sunk, dwindled to a point, then nothing; Looked forth, and from his roaring nostrils sent The Recluse. A fountain issuing into light Before a marble palace, threw Flies o'er its eddying surface played, Flocks through the verdant meadows strayed; 'Twas beautiful to stand and watch That charmed the eye, but missed the heart. Dearer to me the little stream Whose unimprisoned waters run, By rock and glen, through shade and sun; Her name and date from me concealed, She cast her glory round a court, Where fashion's high-born minions sport But thence, when love had touched her soul, From din, and pageantry, and strife, 'Midst woods and mountains, vales and plains, She treads the paths of lowly life, Yet in a bosom-circle reigns, No fountain scattering diamond-showers, Aspirations of Youth. Higher, higher, will we climb, Up the mount of glory, That our names may live through time Deeper, deeper, let us toil In the mines of knowledge; Nature's wealth and learning's spoil, Win from school and college; Delve we there for richer genis Than the stars of diadems. Onward, onward, will we press Through the path of duty; Virtue is true happiness, Excellence true beauty. Closer, closer, then we knit Oh, they wander wide who roam, Nearer, dearer bands of love The Common Lot. Once, in the flight of ages past, There lived a man: and who was he? Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast, That man resembled thee. Unknown the region of his birth, The land in which he died unknown: That joy, and grief, and hope, and fear, The bounding pulse, the languid limb, He suffered-but his pangs are o'er; He loved-but whom he loved the grave He saw whatever thou hast seen; Prayer is the soul's sincere desire That trembles in the breast. Prayer is the burden of a sigh, Prayer is the simplest form of speech That infant lips can try; Prayer the sublimest strains that reach, The Majesty on high. Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, The Christian's native air; His watchword at the gates of death: Nor prayer is made on earth alone: O Thou, by whom we come to God, Home. There is a land, of every land the pride, Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife, THE HON. WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER. The HON. WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER (17701834) published occasional poems of that description named vers de société, whose highest object is to gild the social hour. They were exaggerated in compliment and adulation, and wittily parodied in the Rejected Addresses. As a companion, Mr Spencer was much prized by the brilliant circles of the metropolis; but, if we may credit an anecdote told by Rogers, he must have been heartless and artificial. Moore wished that Spencer should bail him when he was in custody after the affair of the duel with Jeffrey. 'Spencer did not seem much inclined to do so, remarking that he could not well go out, for it was already twelve o'clock, and he had to be dressed by four. Spencer, falling into pecuniary difficulties, removed to Paris, where he died. His poems were collected and published in 1835. Mr Spencer translated the Leonora of Bürger with great success, and in a vein of similar excellence composed some original ballads, one of which, marked by simplicity and pathos, we subjoin: Beth Gilert, or the Grave of the Greyhound. And still he blew a louder blast, 'Oh, where doth faithful Gêlert roam, So true, so brave-a lamb at home, 'Twas only at Llewelyn's board The faithful Gêlert fed; He watched, he served, he cheered his lord, And sentinelled his bed. In sooth he was a peerless hound, The gift of royal John; But now no Gêlert could be found, And now, as o'er the rocks and dells That day Llewelyn little loved The chase of hart and hare; Unpleased, Llewelyn homeward hied, But, when he gained his castle-door, Aghast the chieftain stood; The hound all o'er was smeared with gore; Llewelyn gazed with fierce surprise; Onward, in haste, Llewelyn passed, He called his child-no voice replied- 'Hell-hound! my child's by thee devoured,' His suppliant looks, as prone he fell, Aroused by Gêlert's dying yell, Some slumberer wakened nigh: What words the parent's joy could tell Concealed beneath a tumbled heap Nor scathe had he, nor harm, nor dread, Ah, what was then Llewelyn's pain! Vain, vain was all Llewelyn's woe; The frantic blow which laid thee low And now a gallant tomb they raise, There, never could the spearman pass, And there he hung his horn and spear, In fancy's ear he oft would hear Poor Gêlert's dying yell. And, till great Snowdon's rocks grow old, And cease the storm to brave, The consecrated spot shall hold The name of 'Gêlert's Grave.' To Too late I stayed-forgive the crime; What eye with clear account remarks When all its sands are diamond sparks, Oh, who to sober measurement Stanzas. When midnight o'er the moonless skies Visions of long-departed joys! The shade of youthful hope is there, With phantom honours by his side. They once were Friendship, Truth, and Love! Oh, die to thought, to memory die, Since lifeless to my heart ye prove! These last two verses, Sir Walter Scott, who knew and esteemed Spencer, quotes in his diary, terming them 'fine lines,' and expressive of his own feelings amidst the wreck and desolation of his fortunes at Abbotsford. HENRY LUTTRELL. Another man of wit and fashion, and a pleasing versifier, was HENRY LUTTRELL (1770-1851), author of Advice to Julia: a Letter in Rhyme, 1820, and Crockford House, 1827. Mr Luttrell was a favourite in the circle of Holland House: 'none of the talkers whom I meet in London society,' said Rogers, 'can slide in a brilliant thing with such readiness as he does.' The writings of these witty and celebrated conversationists seldom do justice to their talents, but there are happy descriptive passages and touches of light satire in Luttrell's verses. Rogers used to quote an epigram made by his friend on the celebrated vocalist, Miss Tree: On this tree when a nightingale settles and sings, The tree will return her as good as she brings. Luttrell sat in the Irish parliament before the Union. He is said to have been a natural son of Lord Carhampton. The following are extracts from the Advice to Julia: London in Autumn. 'Tis August. Rays of fiercer heat Full on the scorching pavement beat. As o'er it the faint breeze, by fits Alternate, blows and intermits. |