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have allusions and a style more or less appropriate to the time in which they profess to have been written; but they are none of them likely to deceive a competent scholar. Chatterton displays occasionally great power of satire, and generally a luxuriance of fancy and richness of invention which, considering his youth, were not unworthy of Spenser. His avowed compositions are very inferior to the forgeries a fact that Scott explains by supposing that in the forgeries all his powers must have been taxed to the utmost to support the deception."-Dr. Angus's "Handbook Eng. Lit." See Allibone's "Crit. Dict. Eng. Lit."; Shaw's "Hist. Eng. Lit."; Gilfillan's ed. "Chatterton's Poems."

WILLIAM FALCONER.

"William Falconer, born 1730, died 1769, was the son of a barber in Edinburgh, and went to sea at an early age in a merchant vessel of Leith. He was afterwards mate of a ship that was wrecked in the Levant, and was one of only three out of her crew that were saved, a catastrophe which formed the subject of his future poem. He was for some time in the capacity of a servant to Campbell, the author of 'Lexiphanes,' when purser of a ship. Campbell is said to have discovered in Falconer talents worthy of cultivation, and when the latter distinguished himself as a poet, used to boast that he had been his scholar. What he learned from Campbell it is not very easy to ascertain. His education, as he often assured Governor Hunter, had been confined to reading, writing, and a little arithmetic, though in the course of his life he picked up some acquaintance with the French, Spanish, and Italian languages. In these his countryman was not likely to have much assisted him; but he might have lent him books, and possibly instructed him in the use of figures. Falconer published his Shipwreck ' in 1762, and by the favour of the Duke of York, to whom it was dedicated, obtained the appointment of a midshipman in the Royal George,' and afterwards that of purser in the 'Glory' frigate. He soon afterwards married a Miss Hicks, an accomplished and beautiful woman, the daughter of the surgeon of Sheerness-yard. At the peace of 1763 he was on the point of being reduced to distressed circumstances by his ship being laid up in ordinary at Chatham, when, by the friendship of Commissioner Hanway, who ordered the cabin of the Glory' to be fitted up for his residence, he enjoyed for some time a retreat for study without expense or embarrassment. Here he employed himself in compiling his 'Marine Dictionary,' which appeared in 1769, and has been always highly spoken of by those who are capable of estimating its merits.

He embarked also in the politics of the day, as a poetical antagonist to Churchill, but with little advantage to his memory. Before the publication of his 'Marine Dictionary,' he had left his retreat at Chatham for a less comfortable abode in the metropolis, and appears to have struggled with considerable difficulties, in the midst of which he received proposals from the late Mr. Murray, the bookseller, to join him in the business which he had newly established. The cause of his refusing this offer was, in all probability, the appointment which he received to the pursership of the 'Aurora,' East Indiaman. In that ship he embarked for India, in September, 1769, but the Aurora' was never heard of after she passed the Cape, and was thought to have foundered in the Channel of Mozambique; so that the poet of the Shipwreck' may be supposed to have perished by the same species of calamity which he had rehearsed.

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"The subject of the Shipwreck,' and the fate of its author, bespeak an uncommon partiality in its favour. If we pay respect to the ingenious scholar who can produce agreeable verses amidst the shades of retirement, or the shelves of his library, how much more interest must we take in the ship-boy on the high and giddy mast,' cherishing refined visions of fancy at the hour which he may casually snatch from fatigue and danger. Nor did Falconer neglect the proper acquirements of seamanship in cultivating poetry, but evinced considerable knowledge of his profession, both in his Marine Dictionary' and in the nautical precepts of the 'Shipwreck.' In that poem he may be said to have added a congenial and peculiarly British subject to the language; at least, we had no previous poem of any length of which the characters and catastrophe were purely naval.

"The scene of the catastrophe (though he followed only the fact of his own history) was poetically laid amidst seas and shores where the mind easily gathers romantic associations, and where it supposes the most picturesque vicissitudes of scenery and climate. The spectacle of a majestic British ship on the shores of Greece brings as strong a reminiscence to the mind as can well be imagined, of the changes which time has wrought in transplanting the empire of arts and civilization. Falconer's characters are few; but the calm, sagacious commander, and the rough, obstinate Rodmond, are well contrasted. Some part of the love-story of Palemon' is rather swainish and protracted, yet the effect of his being involved in the calamity leaves a deeper sympathy in the mind for the daughter of Albert, when we conceive her at once deprived both of a father and a lover. The incidents of the Shipwreck,' like those of a wellwrought tragedy, gradually deepen, while they yet leave a suspense of hope and fear to the imagination. In the final scene there is something that deeply touches our compassion in

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the picture of the unfortunate man who is struck blind by a flash of lightning at the helm. I remember, by the way, to have met with an affecting account of the identical calamity befalling the steersman of a forlorn vessel in a similar moment, given in a prose and veracious history of the loss of a vessel on the coast of America. Falconer skilfully heightens this trait by showing its effect on the commiseration of Rodmond, the roughest of his characters, who guides the victim of misfortune to lay hold of a sail.

'A flash, quick glancing on the nerves of light,

Struck the pale helmsman with eternal night:

Rodmond, who heard a piteous groan behind,

Touch'd with compassion, gazed upon the blind;

And, while around his sad companions crowd,

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He guides th' unhappy victim to the shroud,

Hie thee aloft, my gallant friend! he cries; Thy only succour on the mast relies!'

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The effect of some of his sea phrases is to give a definite and authentic character to his descriptions; but that of most of them, to a landsman's ear, resembles slang, and produces obscurity. His diction, too, generally abounds with common-place expletives and feeble lines. His scholarship on the shores of Greece is only what we should accept of from a seaman; but his poem has the sensible charm of appearing a transcript of reality, and leaves an impression of truth and nature on the mind." -Campbell's "Specimens," 480, 481. See Allibone's "Crit. Dict. Eng. Lit."; Chambers's "Cyc. Eng. Lit.," vol. ii.

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the news of Churchill's death arrived, Lloyd was seated at dinner; he became instantly sick, cried out Poor Charles! I shall follow him soon,' and died in a few weeks. chill's sister, a woman of excellent abilities, waited on Lloyd during his illness, and died soon after him of a broken heart. This was in 1764.

"Lloyd was a minor Churchill. He had not his brawny force, but he had more than his liveliness of wit, and was a much better-conditioned man, and more temperate in his satire. Cowper knew, loved, and admired, and in some of his verses imitated, Robert Lloyd."-Gilfillan's "Less-known Brit. Poets," 126, 127.

CHARLES CHURCHILL.

"Charles Churchill, born 1731, died 1764. He was the son of a respectable clergyman, who was curate and lecturer of St. John's, Westminster. He was educated at Westminster School, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, but not being disposed

'O'er crabbed authors life's gay prime to waste,

Or cramp wild genius in the chains of taste,'

he left the university abruptly, and coming to London made a clandestine marriage in the Fleet. His father, though much displeased at the proceeding, became reconciled to what could not be remedied, and received the imprudent couple for about a year under his roof. After this young Churchill went for some time to study theology at Sunderland, in the north of England, and having taken orders, officiated at Cadbury, in Somersetshire, and at Rainham, a living of his father's in Essex, till upon the death of his father he succeeded, in 1758, to the curacy and lectureship of St. John's, Westminster. Here he conducted himself for some time with a de.corum suitable to his profession, and increased his narrow income by undertaking private tuition. He got into debt, it is true; and Dr. Lloyd, of Westminster, the father of his friend the poet, was obliged to mediate with his creditors for their acceptance of a composition; but when fortune put it into his power Churchill honourably discharged all his obligations. His 'Rosciad' appeared at first anonymously, in 1761, and was ascribed to one or other of half the wits in town; but his acknowledgement of it, and his poetical 'Apology,' in which he retaliated upon the critical reviewers of his poem (not fearing to affront even Fielding and Smollett), made him at once famous and formidable. The players, at least, felt him to be so. Garrick himself, who, though extolled in the Rosciad,' was

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sarcastically alluded to in the Apology,' courted him like a suppliant; and his satire had the effect of driving poor Tom Davies, the biographer of Garrick, though he was a tolerable performer, from the stage. A letter from another actor, of the name of Davis, who seems rather to have dreaded than experienced his severity, is preserved in Nichols's 'Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century,' in which the poor comedian deprecates the poet's censure in an expected publication, as likely to deprive him of bread. What was mean in Garrick might have been an object of compassion in this humble man; but Churchill answered him with surly contempt, and holding to the plea of justice, treated his fears with the apparent satisfaction of a hangman. His moral character, in the meantime, did not keep pace with his literary reputation. As he got above neglect he seems to have thought himself above censure. His superior, the Dean of Westminster, having had occasion to rebuke him for some irregularities, he threw aside at once the clerical habit and profession, and arrayed his ungainly form in the splendour of fashion. Amidst the remarks of his enemies, and what he pronounces the still more insulting advice of his prudent friends upon his irregular life, he published his epistle to Lloyd, entitled 'Night,' a sort of manifesto of the impulses, for they could not be called principles, by which he professed his conduct to be influenced. The leading maxims of this epistle are, that prudence and hypocrisy in these times are the same thing! that good hours are but fine words; and that it is better to avow faults than to conceal them. Speaking of his convivial enjoyments, he says

'Night's laughing hours unheeded slip
away,

Nor one dull thought foretells approach
of day.'

In the same description he somewhat awkwardly introduces

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Accordingly, the most prominent circumstances that we afterwards learn respecting him are, that he separated from his wife, and seduced the daughter of a tradesman in Westminster. At the end of a fortnight, either from his satiety or repentance, he advised this unfortunate woman to return to her friends; but took her back again upon her finding her home made intolerable by the reproaches of a sister. His reputation for inebriety also received some public acknowledgments. Hogarth gave as much celebrity as he could to his love of porter, by representing him in the act of drinking a mug of that liquor in the shape of a bear; but the painter had no great reason to congratulate himself ultimately on the effects of his caricature. Our poet was included in the general warrant that was issued for apprehending Wilkes. He hid himself, however, and avoided imprisonment. the autumn of 1764 he paid a visit to Mr. Wilkes at Boulogne, where he caught a military fever, and expired in his thirty-third

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"Churchill may be ranked as a satirist immediately after Pope and Dryden, with perhaps a greater share of humour than either. He has the bitterness of Pope, with less wit to atone for it; but no mean share of the free manner and energetic plainness of Dryden. After the Rosciad' and Apology' he began his poem of the Ghost' (founded on the well-known story of Cock-lane), many parts of which tradition reports him to have composed when scarce recovered from his fits of drunkenness. It is certainly a rambling and scandalous production, with a few such original gleams as might have crossed the brain of genius amidst the bile and lassitude of dissipation. The novelty of political warfare seems to have given a new impulse to his powers in the Prophecy of Famine,' a satire on Scotland, which even to Scotchmen must seem to sheath its sting in its laughable extravagance. His poetical Epistle to Hogarth' is remarkable, amidst its savage ferocity, for one of the best panegyrics that was ever bestowed on that painter's works. He scalps indeed even barbarously the infirmities of the man, but, on the whole, spares the laurels of the artist. The following is his description of Hogarth's powers :

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"But without enumerating similar passages, which may form an exception to the remark, the general tenor of his later works fell beneath his first reputation. His 'Duellist' is positively dull; and his 'Gotham,' the imaginary realm of which he feigns himself the sovereign, is calculated to remind us of the proverbial wisdom of its sages. It was justly complained that he became too much an echo of himself, and that before his short literary career was closed, his originality appeared to be exhausted."-Campbell's Specimens," pp. 454-456. See Allibone's "Crit. Dict. Eng. Lit."; Shaw's "Hist. Eng. Lit."; Gilfillan's Ed. of "Churchill's Poems."

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MICHAEL BRUCE.

"We refer our readers to Dr. Mackelvie's well-known and very able' Life of poor Bruce' for his full story, and for the evidence on which his claim to the Cuckoo' is rested. Apart from external evidence, we think that poem more characteristic of Bruce's genius than of Logan's, and have therefore ranked it under Bruce's name.

"Bruce was born on the 27th of March, 1746, at Kinnesswood, parish of Portmoak, county of Kinross. His father was a weaver, and Michael was the fifth of a family of eight children. Poor as his parents were, they were intelligent, religious, and most conscientious in the discharge of their duties to their children. In the summer months Michael was sent out to herd cattle; and one loves to imagine the young poet wrapt in his plaid, under a whin-bush, while the storm was blowing, or gazing at the rainbow from the summit of a fence,-or admiring at Lochleven and its old ruined castle,-or weaving around the form of some little maiden, herding in a neighbouring field-some Jeanie Morrison-one of those webs of romantic early love which are beautiful and evanescent as the gossamer, but how exquisitely relished while they last! Say not, with one of his biographers, that his education was retarded by this employment;' he was receiving in these solitary fields a kind of education which no school and no college could furnish; nay, who knows but, as he saw the cuckoo winging her way from one deep woodland recess to another, or heard her dull, divine monotone coming from the heart of the forest, the germ of that exquisite strain, 'least in the kingdom' of the heaven of poetry in size, but immortal in its smallness, was sown in his mind? In winter he went to school, and profited there so much, that at fifteen (not a very early period, after all, for a Scotch student beginning his curriculum-in our day twelve was not an uncommon age) he was judged fit for going to college. And just in time a windfall came across the path of our poet, the mention of which may make many of our readers smile. This was a legacy which was left his father by a relative, amounting to 200 marks, or £11. 2s. 6d. With this munificent sum in his pocket, Bruce was sent to study at Edinburgh College. Here he became distinguished by his attainments, and particularly his taste and poetic powers; and here, too, he became acquainted with John Logan, afterwards his biographer. After spending three sessions at college, supported by his parents and other friends, he returned to the country, and taught a school at Gairney Bridge (a place famous for the first meeting of the first presbytery of the Seceders), for £11 of salary. Thence he removed to Foresthill, near Alloa, where a damp school-room, poverty, and hard labour in teaching, united to injure his health and

depress his spirits. At Foresthill he wrote his poem Lochleven,' which discovers no small descriptive power. Consumption began now to make its appearance, and he returned to the cottage of his parents, where he wrote his Elegy on Spring,' in which he refers with dignified pathos to his approaching dissolution. On the 5th of July, 1767, this remarkable youth died, aged twenty-one years and three months. His Bible was found on his pillow, marked at the words, Jer. xxii. 10, 'Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep sore for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native country.'

"Lord Craig wrote some time afterwards an affecting paper in the Mirror,' recording the fate, and commending the genius of Bruce. John Logan, in 1770, published his poems. In the year 1807, the kind-hearted Principal Baird published an edition of the poems for the behoof of Bruce's mother, then an aged widow. And in 1837, Dr. William Mackelvie, Balgedie, Kinross-shire, published what may be considered the standard Life of this poet, along with a complete edition of his Works.

"It is impossible from so small a segment of a circle as Bruce's life describes to infer with any certainty the whole. So far as we can judge from the fragments left, his power was rather in the beautiful, than in the sublime or in the strong. The lines on Spring, from the words 'Now spring returns' to the close, form a continuous stream of pensive loveliness. How sweetly he sings in the shadow of death! Nor let us too severely blame his allusion to the old Pagan mythology, in the words

I hear the helpless wail, the shriek of

woe,

I see the muddy wave, the dreary shore ;'

remembering that he was still a mere student, and not recovered from that fine intoxication in which classical literature drenches a young imaginative soul, and that at last we find him 'resting in the hopes of an eternal day.' 'Lochleven' is the spent echo of the Seasons,' although, as we said before, its descriptions possess considerable merit. His 'Last Day' is more ambitious than successful. If we grant the Cuckoo' to be his, as we are inclined decidedly to do, it is a sure title to fame, being one of the sweetest little poems in any language. Shakspere would have been proud of the verse

'Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year.'

Bruce has not, however, it has always ap peared to us, caught so well as Wordsworth the differentia of the cuckoo,-its invisible.

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How fine this conception of a separated voice -The viewless spirit of a lonely sound,' plaining in the woods as if seeking for some incarnation it cannot find, and saddening the spring groves by a note so contradictory to the genius of the season. In reference to the note of the cuckoo we find the following remarks among the fragments from the commonplace book of Dr. Thomas Brown, printed by Dr. Welsh:-" -The name of the cuckoo has generally been considered as a very pure instance of imitative harmony. But in giving that name, we have most unjustly defrauded the poor bird of a portion of its very small variety of sound. The second syllable is not a mere echo of the first; it is the sound reversed, like the reading of a sotadic line; and to preserve the strictness of the imitation we should give it the name of Ook-koo.'. This is the prose of the cuckoo after its poetry." Such is Gilfillan's eloquent tribute to the genius of Bruce; we must, however, give the authorship of the "Cuckoo" to Logan.— Gilfillan's "Less-known Brit. Poets," vol. iii., pp. 143-146. See Allibone's "Crit. Dict. Eng. Lit."; Chambers's "Cyc. Eng. Lit."; Shaw's "Hist. Eng. Lit."

JOHN LOGAN.

"John Logan was born in the year 1748. He was the son of a farmer at Soutra, in the parish of Fala, Mid-Lothian. He was educated for the church at Edinburgh, where he became intimate with Robertson, afterwards the historian. So, at least, Campbell asserts; but he strangely calls him a student of the same standing, whereas, in fact, Robertson saw light in 1721, and had been a settled minister five years before Logan was born. After finishing his studies he became tutor in the family of Mr. Sinclair of Ulbster, and the late well-known Sir John Sinclair was one of his pupils. When licensed to preach, Logan be. came popular, and was in his twenty-fifth year appointed one of the ministers of South Leith. In 1781 he read, in Edinburgh, a course of lectures on the Philosophy of History, and in 1782 he printed one of them, on the Government of Asia. In the same year he published a volume of poems, which were well received. In 1783 he wrote a tragedy called Runnymede,' which was, owing to some imagined incendiary matter, prohibited from being acted on the London boards, but

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