Lost in the hollow tomb obscure and deep,
Slumber, to wake no more, one long unbroken sleep!

Polwhele.

The meanest herb we trample in the field,
Or in the garden nurture, when its leaf
At winter's touch is blasted, and its place
Forgotten, soon its vernal buds renews,
And from short slumber wakes to life again,
Man wakes no more! Man, valiant, glorious, wise,
When death once chills him sinks in sleep profound,
A long, unconscious, never ending sleep.

Gisborne.

The same sentiment may be found in Catullus, Horace, Albinovanus, Spenser, &c. but none have equalled Doctors Jortin and Beattie, in imitating, and even improving on this pensive idea.

Hei mihi! lege rata sol occidit atque resurgit,
Lunaque mutatæ reparat dispendia formæ:
Sidera, purpurei telis extincta diei,

Rursùs nocte vigent: humiles telluris alumni,
Graminis herba virens, et florum picta propago,
Quos crudelis hyems lethali tabe peredit;
Cum Zephyri vox blanda vocat, rediitque sereni
Temperies anni, redivivo è cespite surgunt.
Nos, Domini rerum! nos, magna et pulchra minati!
Cum breve ver vitæ robustaque transiit æstas,
Deficimus: neque nos ordo revolubilis auras
Reddit in ætherias, tumuli nec claustra resolvit.

Jortin.

Ah why thus abandon'd to darkness and woe,
Why thus, lonely Philomel, flows thy sad strain ?
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
And thy bosom no trace of misfortune retain.
Yet, if pity inspire thee, ah cease not thy lay,
Mourn, sweetest Complainer, Man calls thee to

mourn:

O sooth him, whose pleasures like thine pass away—
Full quickly they pass—but they never return.

Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky,
The Moon half extinguish'd her crescent displays;
But lately I mark'd, when majestic on high
She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze,
Roll on thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue
The path that conducts thee to splendor again.—
But Man's faded glory no change shall renew.
Ah fool! to exult in a glory so vain!

'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more;
I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;
For morn is approaching, your charins to restore,
Perfum'd with fresh fragrance and glittering with dew.
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;
Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save.-

But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn!
O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!

Beattie.

The beginning of the quotation from Jortin, and the two first stanzas from Dr. Beattie, are beautiful additions to the original idea. The lines of Beattie indeed flow with the most melancholy and musical expression, steal into the heart itself, and excite a train of pleasing though gloomy association.*

Closing, however, this long digression, let us return to our subject, and here we may observe, that some time before the age of Spenser, a model of pastoral simplicity was given us in a beautiful poem entitled Harpalus, and which is introduced by Dr. Percy into his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. Had Spenser attended more to the unaffected ease and natural expression of this fine old pastoral, he would not, I presume, have interwoven theology with his eclogues, nor chosen such a barbarous and vulgar jargon to convey the sentiments of his shepherds in. Few poets exceed Spenser in the brilliancy of his imagination, and there is a tender melancholy in his compositions which endears him to the reader, but elegant simplicity, so necessary in Bucolic poetry, was no characteristic of the author of the Fairy Queen. In every requisite for this province of his divine art, he has been much excelled by Drayton, whose Nymphidia may be considered as one of the best specimens we have of the pastoral eclogue. The present age seems to have forgotten this once popular poet; an edition indeed has been published of his Heroical Epistles, but various other portions of his works, and more especially his Nymphidia, merit republication.

After the example of Tasso and Guarini, whose Aminta and Pastor Fido were highly distinguished in the literary world, Fletcher wrote his Faithful Shepherdess, a piece that rivals, and, perhaps, excels the boasted productions of the Italian muse. Equally possessing the elegant simplicity which characterises the Aminta, it has at the same time a richer vin of wild and romantic imagery, and disdains those affected prettinesses which deform the drama of Guarini. This Arcadian Comedy of Fletcher's was held in high estimation by Milton; its frequent allusion, and with the finest effect, to the popular superstitions, caught the congenial spirit of our enthusiastic bard. The Sad Shepherd of Jonson likewise, Browne's Britannia's Pastorals and Warner's Albion's England may be mentioned as containing much pastoral description of the most genuine kind. Of the singular production of Warner, there is, I believe, no modern edition, yet few among our elder poets more deserve the attention of the lover of nature and rural simplicity. Some well-chosen extracts from this work are to be found in the collections of Percy and Headley, and his Argentile and Curan has been the mean of enriching our language with an admirable drama from the pen of Mason. Scott too, in describing his favorite village of Amwell, "where sleeps our bard by Fame forgotten" has offered a due tribute to his memory. Numerous passages estimable for their simple and pathetic beauty might be quoted from his volume; the following will convince the reader, that harmony of versification also, and a terseness and felicity of diction are among his excellences.