Ah! ring such pensive peals as when

In these tall groves I wander'd sighing; And listen'd to the best of men !

Who now in yonder grave is lying!

Ah! ring such peals as may recall
Those happy hours-now gone for ever!—
And, while the bitter tear-drops fall,
At once my soul and reason sever!

WILLIAM GIFFORD.

1797.

The account of Gifford has been published by himself, with a manliness of mind, and integrity of detail, of which perhaps there is no other example throughout the range of general biography. It is in this spirit that lives should be written, if they are designed to inform the living, and not merely to eulogise the dead.

William Gifford was born in April 1757, at Ashburton in Devonshire. Rescued from obscurity by the force of his own merit, supported by the generous discrimination of Mr. Cookesley, a surgeon of his native place, he afterwards procured admission to Exeter College, Oxford. Here a casual connexion became the means of introducing him to the notice of the late Earl Grosvenor, to whose unexampled patronage, during a period of twenty years, the world is probably indebted for the possession of those excellent satires the "Baviad and Mæviad," of which the latter appeared in 1795.

If conjecture may be allowed to designate the object of the only "two wild strains that live in Mr. Gifford's recollection," surely it is of ANNA that he speaks, in the following melancholy passage of his early life. "I crept on in silent discontent, unfriended and unpitied; indignant at the present, careless of the future, an object at once of apprehension and dislike. From this state of abjectness I was raised by a young woman of my own class. "SHE was a neighbour; and whenever I took my solitary walk, with my Wolfius in my pocket, she usually came to the door, and by a smile, or a short question put in the friendliest manner, endeavoured to solicit my attention. My heart had been long shut to kindness, but the sentiment was not dead in me: it revived at the first encouraging word: and the gratitude I felt for it, was the first pleasing sensation I had ventured to entertain for many dreary months." To this amiable girl, and to her only,

seem to refer these lines, in the "Baviad and Mæviad," introductory of the two poems to Anna.

"Unheard till ANNA came,

(What! throb'st thou YET, my bosom, at the name?) And chas'd the' oppressive doubts that round me clung, And fir'd my breast, and loosen'd all my tongue.

* * *

* * *

*

* *
How oft, O Dart! what time the faithful Pair
Walk'd forth, the fragrant hour of Eve to share,
On thy romantic banks; have my wild strains,
(Not yet forgot amidst my native plains)
While thou hast sweetly gurgled down the vale,
Fill'd up the pause of love's delightful tale!
While, ever as the road, the conscious Maid,
By faltering voice and downcast looks betray'd,
Would blushing on her Lover's neck recline,
And with her finger point the tenderest line !"

Such a woman was not likely to be effaced from the memory of such a lover! It is in this canonization of the heart, this sanctity of attachment, that human affection appears to approach the immortality for which it was designed.

TO A TUFT OF EARLY VIOLETS.

SWEET flowers! that from your humble beds
Thus prematurely dare to rise,
And trust your unprotected heads
To cold Aquarius' wat❜ry skies;

Retire, retire! these tepid airs

Are not the genial brood of May; That Sun with light malignant glares, And flatters only to betray.

Stern winter's reign is not yet past—
Lo! while your buds prepare to blow,
On icy pinions comes the blast,

And nips your root, and lays you low.

Alas, for such ungentle doom!

But I will shield you; and supply
A kindlier soil on which to bloom,
A nobler bed on which to die.

Come then-ere yet the morning ray
Has drunk the dew that gems your crest,
And drawn your balmiest sweets away;
O come, and grace my ANNA's breast.

Ye droop, fond flowers! But did ye know
What worth, what goodness there reside,
Your cups with loveliest tints would glow,
And spread their leaves with conscious pride.

For there has liberal Nature join'd
Her riches to the stores of art,
And added to the vigorous mind,
The soft, the sympathising heart.

Come then-ere yet the morning ray
Has drunk the dew that gems your crest,
And drawn your balmiest sweets away;
O come and grace my Anna's breast.

O! I should think,—that fragrant bed
Might I but hope with you to share,-
Years of anxiety repaid,

By one short hour of transport there!

More blest than me, thus shall ye live
Your little day; and when ye die,
Sweet flowers! the grateful Muse shall give
A verse; the sorrowing Maid, a sigh.

While I, alas! no distant date,

Mix with the dust from whence I came, Without a friend to weep my fate, Without a stone to tell my name.

WRITTEN TWO YEARS AFTER THE PRECEDING.

I WISH I was where ANNA lies!

For I am sick of lingering here;

And every hour affection cries

Go, and partake her humble bier!"

I wish I could! for when she died

I lost my all; and life has prov'd Since that sad hour a dreary void, A waste unlovely and unlov'd.—

But who, when I am turn'd to clay,
Shall duly to her grave repair;

And pluck the ragged moss away,

And weeds that have no business there?'

And who with pious hand shall bring

The flowers she cherish'd; snow-drops cold,

And violets that unheeded spring,

To scatter o'er her hallow'd mould?