with other poems of our author, occur in Mr.. Headley's truly "Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry *

"MY MIDNIGHT MEDITATION.

ILL-BUSI'D man! why should'st thou take such care
To lengthen out thy life's short kalendar?

When ev'ry spectacle thou look'st upon
Presents and acts thy execution:

Each drooping season, and each flower doth cry,': 'Fool! as I fade and wither, thou must die.'

The beating of thy pulse, when thou art well,
Is just the tolling of thy passing bell;

Night is thy hearse, whose sable canopy
Covers alike deceased day and thee;

And all those weeping dews which nightly fall,
Are but the tears shed for thy funeral.

This elegant selection, which had become extremely scarce, has just been re-published in a manner highly creditable to the taste of Mr. Sharpe: the work is printed in the modern orthography, in imitation of Mr. Ellis's Specimens. Headley's Original Poems are added; and a life of him prefixed by the Rev. Mr. Kett.

RICHARD GOODRIDGE.

Of this translator little, I believe, is known. He has paraphrased the whole Psalter, and given an additional version of above an hundred psalms. I have selected from him the third, and the 100th: psalms; both, I trust my reader will think with. me, highly creditable to his poetic talents.-

The third edition of his work was printed 1685.

SIR JOHN DENHAM,

The celebrated author of Cooper's Hill, and other Poems, translated the whole Book of Psalms; but to. this translation may be applied what has been justly observed of his other versions, that "they are without the spirit of* his own rules, or the practice of his own example in his original pieces." It has, however, been very highly commended by Felton, in his excellent treatise on reading the classics.

"He gave, in the short preface to his second book of Virgil, the best rules for translation that had then appeared, ar that will, perhaps, ever appear."

Cursory Remarks on some of the ancient English Poets

The reader will, however, find in this selection one or two of Sir John Denham's psalms not wholly unworthy of his high name as a poet. He was born 1615, and died 1668.

MILES SMYTH

Was born 1618. Upon the breaking out of the Rebellion, in 1642, he adhered to the cause of his Majesty, and did him service. Having suffered as a royalist, he was, after the Restoration of King Charles II. received into the service of Dr. Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, who appointed him his secretary. He died 1671.

Wood's Ath. Ox.

SIMON FORD

Was born 1619. He describes himself, in his titlepage to his Psalms, Rector of Old Swinford, Worcestershire. His version was published 1688. In his preface he gives a brief account of Sternhold and Hopkins, and endeavours to defend their translation. His concluding sentence is just, and worth citing : "God hath received a great deal of praise,

and the ordinary sort of Christians a great deal of edification and comfort, by the use of that version of theirs, for above an hundred years, in this church."

"He was accounted (says Wood), by those that knew him, a very able scholar, a noted preacher, and a most eloquent Latin poet."

JOHN PATRICK,

Preacher to the Charter-House, and brother of Simon, Bishop of Ely, the learned and excellent commentator on the Old Testament, has translated the whole Book of Psalms, and likewise given a century of psalms, the poetry of which latter work is superior to that of the former. He died 1695.

"Mr. Patrick of the Charter-House (says Baxter) hath with pious skill and seriousness turned into a new metre many of David's Psalms, and the advantage for holy affections and harmony hath so far reconciled the nonconformists, that divers of them use his psalms in their congregations, though they have their old ones, Rouse's, Bishop King's, Mr. White's, the New England's, Davison's, the Scots (agreed on by two nations), in competition with it."-Preface to his Poems.

NICHOLAS BRADY, D. D.

Was born in the year 1659, educated at Westminster School, and elected from the foundation to Christ Church, Oxford, 1678. After passing several years in Ireland, his native country, and where he was prebendary of St. Barry's, Cork, he returned to England, and was appointed Vicar of Stratford on Avon, and Rector of Clapham. He is best known as a poet by his share with Tate in the New Version: Cibber ascribes to him the 104th psalm. As to his Eneid let us hear Johnson, who, speaking of Dryden's "noble and spirited translation," and having just refuted the strictures of Milbourne, thus proceeds: When admiration had subsided, the translation was more coolly examined, and found, like all others, to be sometimes erroneous, and sometimes licentious. Those who could find faults, thought they could avoid them; and Dr. Brady attempted, in blank verse, a translation of the Eneid, which, when dragged into the world, did not live long enough to cry. I have never seen it; but that such a version there is, or has been, perhaps some old catalogue informed me." Life of Dryden. Dr. Brady published three volumes of sermons, and died 1726.

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