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"Nay, but credit I've none,
And my money 's all gone;
Then say how may that come to pass?
Well-a-day!"

Hie away to the house on the brow,
Gaffer Gray;

And knock at the jolly priest's door.
"The priest often preaches
Against worldly riches,

But ne'er gives a mite to the poor,
Well-a-day!"

The lawyer lives under the hill,
Gaffer Gray,

Warmly fenced both in back and in front. "He will fasten his locks,

And will threaten the stocks,

Should he evermore find me in want,

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"His fat beeves and his beer,

And his merry new year, Are all for the flush and the fair, Well-a-day!"

My keg is but low, I confess,

Gaffer Gray; What then? while it lasts, man, we 'll live.

"The poor man alone,

When he hears the poor moan,

Of his morsel, a morsel will give,
Well-a-day!"

It is as

SIR WILLIAM JÓNES. 1746-1794.

፡፡

an oriental scholar and legislator, an enlightened lawyer and patriot," that this author is distinguished. He was master of twenty-eight languages, and was considered the finest oriental scholar of his time. His father died when he was young, and he was indebted, in a great degree, to his excellent mother, a lady of extensive knowledge, for his education and love of learning. In his thirty-seventh year, he was appointed one of the judges of the Supreme Court in Bengal, where he spent the remainder of his life. Here, when not engaged in professional duties, he gave his attention to literary and scientific pursuits. He began his studies with the dawn, and as to the division of his time, he had written on a scrap of paper the following lines:

"Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,

Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven."

He wrote translations from the oriental and many other languages, both in prose and verse.

DESCRIPTION OF MILTON'S RESIDENCE.

I SET out in the morning, in company with a friend, to visit a place where Milton spent some part of his life, and where, in all probability, he composed several of his earliest productions. It is a small village, situated on a pleasant hill, about three miles from Oxford, and called Forest Hill, because it formerly lay contiguous to a forest, which has since been cut down. The poet chose this place of retirement after his first marriage, and he describes the beauty of his retreat in that fine passage of his L'Allegro :

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While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrowed land,
And the milk-maid singeth blithe,

And the mower whets his scythe;

And every shepherd tells his tale,

Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,

While the landscape round it measures;

Russet lawns, and fallows gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;

Mountains, on whose barren breast,
The laboring clouds do often rest;

Meadows trim, with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
Towers and battlements it sees,
Bosomed high in tufted trees.

*

Hard by a cottage chimney smokes,

From betwixt two aged oaks," &c.

It was neither the proper season of the year, nor time of the day, to hear all the rural sounds, and see all the objects mentioned in this description; but, by a pleasing concurrence of circumstances, we were saluted, on our approach to the village, with the music of the mower and his scythe; we saw the ploughman intent upon his labor, and the milk-maid returning from her country employment.

As we ascended the hill, the variety of beautiful objects, the agreeable stillness and natural simplicity of the whole scene, gave us the highest pleasure. We at length reached the spot whence Milton undoubtedly took most of his images. It is on the top of the hill, from which there is a most extensive prospect on all sides: the distant mountains that seemed to support the clouds; the villages and turrets, partly shaded by trees of the finest verdure, and partly raised above the groves that surrounded them; the dark plains and meadows, of a grayish color, where the sheep were feeding at large; in short, the view of the streams and rivers, convinced us that there was not a single useless or idle word in the above-mentioned description, but that it was a most exact and lively representation of nature. Thus will this fine passage, which has always been admired for its elegance, receive an additional beauty from its exactness. After we had walked, with a kind of poetical enthusiasm, over this enchanted ground, we returned to the village.

The poet's house was close to the church; the greatest part. of it has been pulled down, and what remains, belongs to an adjacent farm.

*

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It must not be omitted, that the groves near this village are famous for nightingales, which are so elegantly described in the Penseroso. Most of the cottage windows are over-grown with sweet-briars, vines, and honey-suckles; and that Milton's habi

tation had the same rustic ornament, we may conclude from his description of the lark bidding him good-morrow,

"Through the sweet-briar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine;"

for it is evident that he meant a sort of honey-suckle by the eglantine, though that word is commonly used for the sweetbriar, which he could not mention twice in the same couplet. If I ever pass a month or six weeks at Oxford, in the summer, I shall be inclined to hire and repair this venerable mansion, and to make a festival for a circle of friends, in honor of Milton, the most perfect scholar, as well as the sublimest poet, that our country ever produced.

LADY ANNE BARNARD. -1825.

The following ballad of Lady Barnard, which Leigh Hunt says "must have suffused more eyes with tears of the first water than any other ballad that ever was written," was composed in 1771, to the plaintive air of an old Scotch melody. Its authorship was long a secret. Lady Anne, in her account of its composition, given to Sir Walter Scott, says, "While writing it, I called to my little sister, and said, 'I have been writing a ballad, my dear; I am oppressing my heroine with many misfortunes. I have already sent her Jamie to sea, and broken her father's arm, and made her mother fall sick, and given her Auld Robin Gray for a lover; but I wish to load her with a fifth sorrow, poor thing! Help me to one.' 'Steal the cow, sister Anne,' said the little Elizabeth. The cow was immediately lifted by me, and the song completed."

AULD ROBIN GRAY.

WHEN the sheep are in the fauld, when the cows come hame,
When a' the weary world to quiet rest are gane,

The woes of my heart fa' in showers frae my ee,
Unken'd by my gudeman, who soundly sleeps by me.

Young Jamie loo'd me weel, and sought me for his bride;
But saving ae crown-piece, he 'd naething else beside:
To make the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea;
And the crown and the pound, oh, they were baith for me!

Before he had been gane a twelvemonth and a day,
My father brak his arm, an' the cow was stown away;

My mother she fell sick; my Jamie was at sea;`
And Auld Robin Gray, oh! he came a-courting to me.

My father cou'dna work, my mother cou❜dna spin;
I toiled day and night, but their bread I cou'dna win;
Auld Rob maintained them baith, and, wi' tears in his ee,
Said, "Jenny, oh! for their sakes, will you marry me?"

My heart it said na, and I looked for Jamie back;
But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack:
His ship was a wrack! Why didna Jamie dee?
Or, wherefore am I spared to cry out, woe is me!

My father argued sair-my mother didna speak,
But she looked in my face till my heart was like to break;
They gied him my hand, but my heart was in the sea;
And so Auld Robin Gray, he was gudeman to me.

I hadna been his wife, a week but only four,
When, mournfu' as I sat on the stane at my door,
I saw my Jamie's ghaist; - I cou❜dna think it he,
Till he said, "I'm come hame, my love, to marry

O sair, sair did we greet, and mickle say of a';
Ae kiss we took, nae mair I bade him

thee!"

gang awa; I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to dee; For oh, I am but young to cry out, woe is me!

I

gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin;
I darena think o' Jamie, for that wad be a sin.
But I will do my best, a good wife aye to be,
For Auld Robin Gray, oh! he is sae kind to me!

SAMUEL ROGERS. 1762-.

When only nine years old, Rogers was inspired with the determination of becoming a poet, by reading Beattie's Minstrel; but his appear. ance as an author was not until the age of twenty-four. The Voyage of Columbus, the Pleasures of Memory, Human Life, and Italy, are his chief works. For more than fifty years he has held a distinguished place in English literature. He has long been a partner in a banking

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