Of superstition, the insatiate fires

Of persecuting zealots that devour thee;
These are the Titans who disturb thy peace,
This is thy grave, O Sicily! the hell

Deeper than that, which heathen poets feign'd
Under thy burning mountain, that engulphs
Each grace and every muse, arts, arms and all
That elegance inspires or fame records.

Return, ye victims of caprice and spleen,
Ye summer friends, daughters more fitly call'd
Than sons of Albion, to your native shores
Return, self-exiles as you are, and face
This only tyrant which our isle endures,
This hoary-headed terror of the year,
Stern Winter-What, tho' in his icy chains
Imprison'd for a time e'en Father Thames
Checks his imperial current and beholds
His wealthy navigation in arrest,

Yet soon, like Perseus on his winged steed,
Forth from the horns of the celestial Ram

Spring, his deliverer, comes-down, down at once
The frighted monster dives into the earth,
Or bursts asunder with a hideous crash,

As thro' his stubborn ribs th' all-conqu'ring sun
Drives his refulgent spear: the ransomed floods,
As at a signal, rise and clap their hands ;

The mountains shout for joy; the laughing hours
Dance o'er the eastern hills, and in the lap
Of marriageable earth their odours fling,
Wreaths of each vernal flowret, whilst the choir
Of feather'd songsters make the groves resound
With Nature's hymenaals-all is joy.

Hail, bounteous Spring! primæ val season, hail!
Nature's glad herald! who to all the tribes
That link creation's scale, from lordly man
To the small insect, that eludes his sight,
Proclaims that universal law of life,

The first great blessing of the new born world,
'Increase and multiply!'-No sooner heard
By sultry climes, than strait the rebel sun
Mounts his bright throne, and o'er the withering earth
Scatters his bold Titanian fires around,

And cancels Heaven's high edict; Nature feels
Quick growth and quick decay; the verdant scene
Glitters awhile and vanishes at once.

Not such the tints that Albion's landscape wears,
Her mantle dipt in never-fading green,
Keeps fresh its vernal honours thro' the year;
Soft dew-drops nurse her rose's maiden bloom,
And genial showers refresh her vivid lawn.
Thro' other lands indignant of delay

Spring travels homeward with a stranger's haste;
Here he reposes, dwells upon the scene
Enamour'd, native here prolongs his stay,
And when his fiery successor at length

Warns him from hence, with ling'ring step and slow,
And many a stream of falling tears he parts,
Like one, whom surly creditors arrest

In a fond consort's arms and force him thence.

But now, my Muse, to humbler themes descend! 'Tis not for me to paint the various gifts

Which freedom, science, art or fav'ring Heav'n
Shower on my native isle; quench'd are the fires
Which young ambition kindled in my breast;
Morning and noon of life's short day are past,
And what remains for me ere night comes on,
But one still hour perchance of glimmering eve
For sober contemplation? Come, my Muse,
Come then! and as from some high mountain's top
The careful shepherd counts his straggling flock
So will we take one patient last survey

;

Of this unquiet, babbling, anxious world
We'll scan it with a calm but curious eye;
Silence and solitude are all our own;
Their's is the tumult, their's the throng; my soul
Is fitted to the task-for, oh fair truth!
Yet I am thine, on thy perennial base
I will inscribe my monumental verse;
And tho' my heart with kindred ardor beats
To every brave compatriot, yet no ties

Tho' dignified with friendship's specious name,
Shall shackle my free mind, nor any space
Less than the world's wide compass bound my love.
No more; for now the hospitable gates

Of wealthy Attalus invite their guest;
I paus'd and look'd, and yielding to the wish
That fortune had bequeath'd me such a lot,
A momentary sigh surpris'd my heart:

Flocks, herds, and fields of golden grain, of these
I envied not the owner; but I saw

The curling smoke from cottages ascend,
And heard the merry din of childish sports;
I saw the peasant stooping to his plough
And whistling time away; I met a form
Fair as a fabled nymph; Nature had spread
Her toilette, Health her handmaid dealt the bloom,
Simplicity attir'd her; by the copse

Skirting the horn-beam row, where violets bud
And the first primrose opens to the spring,
With her fond lover arm in arm she walk'd,
Not with the stealthy step and harlot leer
Of guilty assignation, nor unnerv'd

By midnight feast or revel, but in prime
Of youth and health and beauty's genuine glow:
I mark'd the conscious look of honest truth,
That greets the passenger with eye direct,
Nor fears nor meditates surprise; my heart
Yearn'd at the sight, and as they pass'd I cried-
Why was it not my fortune to have said
'Go, and be happy?-On a rising slope
Full to the south the stately mansion stands,
Where dwells the master of this rich domain;
Plain and of chaste proportion the device,
Not libell'd and bedawb'd with tawdry frize
Or lac'd pilaster, patch'd with refuse scraps,
Like that fraternal pile on Thames's bank,
Which draws its title not its taste from Greece,
Happy! if there in rural peace he dwells,
Untortur'd by ambition, and enjoys
An eye for nature and a heart for man.

NUMBER LVIII.

Οὐκ ἔσαμαι πλετειν ἔτ ̓ ἔυχομαι, αλλά Hot sin
Ζῆν ἀπὸ τῶν ὀλίγων μηδὲν ἔχοντι κακόν.

'I ask not wealth; let me enjoy
An humble lot without annoy !'

THEOGNIS.

UPON my arrival at the house I was shewn into a small room in the base.story, which the owner of this fine place usually occupied, and in which he now received me here I had been but a very few minutes before he proposed to shew me the house, and for that purpose conducted me up stairs to the grand apartment, and from thence made the entire tour, without excepting any one of the bed-chambers, offices or even closets in the house: I cannot say my friend Attalus consulted times and seasons in chusing so early a moment after my arrival for parading me about in this manner; some of the apartments were certainly very splendid; a great deal of rich furniture and many fine pictures solicited my notice, but the fatigue of so ill-timed a perambulation disabled me from expressing that degree of admiration, which seemed to be expected on this occasion, and which on any other I should have been forward to bestow: I was sorry for this, because I believe he enjoyed little other pleasure in the possession of his house, besides this of shewing it; but it happened to my host, as it does too frequently to the owners of fine places, that he missed

the tribute of flattery by too great eagerness in exacting it.

It appeared to me that Attalus was no longer the gay lively man he was formerly; there was a gloom upon his countenance and an inquietude in his manner, which seemed to lay him under a constraint that he could not naturally get rid of: time hung heavy on our hands till the hour of dinner, and it was not without regret I perceived he had arranged his family meals upon the fashionable system of London hours, and at the distance of two hundred miles from the capital had by choice adopted those very habits, which nothing but the general custom of late assemblies and long sittings in parliament can excuse upon the plea of necessity: it was now the midst of summer, which made the absurdity of such a disposition of our time more glaring, for whilst the best hours of the afternoon were devoted to the table, all exercise and enjoyment out of doors were either to be given up, or taken only in the meridian heat of the day. I discovered a further bad consequence of these habits upon society and good fellowship, for such of the neighbouring gentry, who had not copied his example, were deterred from making him any visits, not presuming to disturb him at unsuitable hours, and yet not able, without a total disarrangement of their own comforts, to make their time conform to his. Attalus.

himself, I must acknowledge, both saw and confessed the bad system he was upon ; he found himself grown unpopular amongst his country neighbours on this very score, and was piqued by their neglect of him: it was a villainous custom,' he observed, and destructive both of health and pleasure; but all people of fashion dined at five, and what could he do? he must live as other great families lived; if indeed he was a mere private gen