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level. The Edinburgh Review speaks of him almost with contempt. "Every one has not the capacity of writing philosophically; but every one may be at least temperate and candid; and Dr. Beattie's work is still more remarkable for being abusive and acrimonious, than for its defects in argument and originality.” — Edinburgh Review,

"Beattie, the most agreeable and amiable writer I ever met with, the only author I have seen whose critical and philosophical researches are diversified and embellished by a poetical imagination, that makes even the driest subject and the leanest a feast for an epicure in books. He is so much at his ease, too, that his own character appears in every page, and which is very rare, we see not only the writer, but the man; and the man so gentle, so well-tempered, so happy in his religion, and so humane in his philosophy, that it is necessary to love him if one has any sense of what is lovely." - Cowper.

The truth lies probably between these two extreme verdicts. A present estimate of Beattie's poetical merits is thus expressed: "The Minstrel is an harmonious and eloquent composition, glowing with poetical sentiment; but its inferiority in the highest poetical qualities may be felt by comparing it with Thomson's Castle of Indolence, which is perhaps the other work in the language which it most nearly resembles, but which yet it resembles much in the same way as gilding does solid gold, or as col ored water might be made to resemble wine.". Craik.

THOMAS BLACKLOCK, D. D., 1721-1791, was a poet and divine whose history borders upon the romantic. He was of poor parents, and he lost his sight by small-pox when only six months old; yet by indomitable energy and perseverance he made out to acquire a classical education, became a Doctor of Divinity, and an author of no mean celebrity. His poems were published with a preface by Spence, the Professor of Poetry at Oxford. He published also Paraclesis, or Consolations deduced from Natural and Revealed Religion, and several other works; and he wrote an article, published in the Encyclopædia Britannica, On the Education of the Blind.

Burns.

Robert Burns, 1759-1796, was "by far the greatest poet that ever sprung from the bosom of the people and lived and died in an humble condition.". Wilson.

Career. Burns was a poor ploughboy, with no advantages of education except those afforded by the common country school. His early effusions were circulated at first in manuscript. Finding that they were in demand among his neighbors, he printed a volume of them at an obscure country town, in 1786. His special object in the publication was to get money to enable him to emigrate to Jamaica. The publication yielded him a profit of £20, which seemed a fortune to the young author. He engaged his passage accordingly, sent his chest aboard the vessel, and was just about to set sail, when he received from Dr. Blacklock a letter inviting him to visit Edinburgh. The Doctor had fallen in with a copy of the poems, and encouraged Burns to believe that an edition might be published in the capital.

The poet changed at once his plans, and went to Edinburgh. There his wonderful abilities, in connection with the humbleness of his position, created a great sensation. Dugald Stewart, Robertson the historian, Dr. Hugh Blair, and all that was most aristocratic in either the intellectual or the social circles of that reserved and haughty metropolis, gathered in admiring wonder around this inspired peasant. A new edition of his poems was printed, which brought him at once the handsome sum of £700. He was caressed and fêted on all sides, and being of an ardent temperament, he yielded to the temptation which these social festivities presented. He fell into the habit of drinking to intoxication, from which he never totally recovered, though he made sundry attempts at reform. He died at the early age of thirty-seven.

Reception at Edinburgh.-"It needs no effort of imagination to conceive what the sensations of an isolated set of scholars (almost all either clergymen or professors) must have been in the presence of this big, broad, black-browed, brawny stranger, with his great flashing eyes, who having forced his way among them from the plough-tail, at a single stride, manifested, in the whole strain of his bearing and conversation, a most thorough conviction that in the society of the most eminent men of his nation he was exactly where he was entitled to be: hardly deigned to flatter them by exhibiting even an occasional symptom of being flattered by their notice; by turns calmly measured himself against the most cultivated understandings of his time, in discussion; overpowered the bon-mots of the most brilliant convivialists by broad floods of merriment, impregnated with all the burning life of genius; astounded bosoms habitually enveloped in the thrice-piled folds of social reserve, by compelling them to tremble,- nay, to tremble visibly, beneath the fearless tones of natural pathos." -Lockhart.

Estimate of his Works.—“All that remains of Burns, the writings he has left, seem to us no more than a poor, mutilated fraction of what was in him; brief broken glimpses of a genius that could never show itself complete; that wanted all things for completeness: - culture, leisure, true effect, nay, even length of life. His poems are, with scarcely an exception, mere occasional effusions, poured forth with little premeditation, expressing, by such means as offered, the passion, opinion, or humor of the hour. Never in one instance was it permitted to grapple with any subject with the full collection of his strength, to fuse and mould it in the concentrated fire of his genius." Thomas Carlyle.

Rev. James Grahame, 1765–1811, is favorably known by his poem, The Sabbath.

Grahame was born in Glasgow, and educated at its University. He followed the law for a time, but afterwards entered the ministry of the English Church. He was very acceptable as a preacher, but was obliged to give up his curacy on account of ill health. His poetry is of a very serious cast, and not at all to the taste of such men as Byron, who calls him "sepulchral Grahame." For all that, he has substan

tial merits and not a few admirers. His best and best known poem is called The Sabbath.

An anecdote is told connected with the publication of his poem which affords an interesting illustration of his character. "He had not prefixed his name to the work, nor acquainted his family with the secret of its composition, and taking a copy of the volume home with him one day, he left it on the table. His wife began reading it, while the sensitive author walked up and down the room; and at length she broke out into praise of the poem, adding, Ah, James, if you could but produce a poem like this!' The joyful acknowledgment of his being the author was then made."Chambers.

Grahame's other poems are: Biblical Pictures; Bride of Scotland; British Georgics; Poems on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, etc.

"Grahame in some respects resembles Cowper. He has no humor or satire, it is true, but the same powers of close and happy observation, which the poet of Olney applied to English scenery, were directed by Grahame to that of Scotland, and both were strictly devout and national poets. There is no author, excepting Burns, whom an intelligent Scotsman, resident abroad, would read with more delight than Grahame. The ordinary features of the Scottish landscape he portrays truly and distinctly, without exaggeration, and often imparting to his description a feeling of tenderness and solemnity. He has, however, many poor prosaic lines, and his versification generally wants ease and variety. He was content with humble things; but he paints the charms of a retired cottage life, the sacred calm of a Sabbath morning, a walk in the fields, or even a bird's nest, with such unfeigned delight and accurate observation, that the reader is constrained to see and feel with his author, to rejoice in the elements of poetry and meditation that are scattered around him, existing in the humblest objects, and in those humane and pious sentiments which impart to external nature a moral interest and beauty "-Chambers.

RICHARD CUMBERLAND, 1732–1811, was a grandson of Dr. Bentley, and otherwise honorably connected. He was employed by the Government in 1780 on a secret mission to Spain and Portugal, but the mission was unsuccessful and disastrous. He devoted himself afterwards to literary pursuits. His works are numerous, and are of some value, though none of them belonging to the first class. The following are the chief: The Wheel of Fortune, The West Indian, The Jew, and The Fashionable Lover, Comedies; John de Lancaster, Arundel, and Henry, novels; A Version of Fifty Psalms of David: The Exodiad; Calvary, or the Death of Christ; Anecdotes of Spanish Painters in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; The Observer, a series of Essays like The Spectator, in 5 vols.; lastly, Memoirs, interspersed with anecdotes of the distinguished men of his time. "It is indeed one of the author's most pleasing works, and conveys a very accurate idea of his talents, feelings, and character, with many powerful sketches of the age which has passed away."-Sir Walter Scott.

Peter Pindar.

John Wolcot, 1738-1819, an erratic genius, better known by his pseudonym of Peter Pindar, was a satirical writer of some note.

Wolcot was educated as a physician, and went to Jamaica to establish himself there. Failing in this profession, he obtained a curacy.

As the charge was merely a nominal one, he amused himself occasionally on Sunday by pigeon-shooting. In 1768 he returned to England, and endeavored once more to establish himself as a physician. Failing again, he betook himself to writing, and for twenty or thirty years electrified the good, easy public by his satires and squibs.

Peter Pindar is beyond doubt a shrewd, clever writer, and had the themes of his pieces been proportionate to their execution, he would take a high rank among English satirists. As it is, he has fallen into neglect. His productions are very numerous, and upon all conceivable subjects of second or third rate order. The best known are the Apple-Dumplings and a King, Whitbread's Brewery visited by their Majesties (both directed against George III, then already half-witted), Lyric Odes on the Royal Academy Exhibition, Epistles to a Fallen Minister, Odes to Mr. Paine, The Louisiad, a Heroi-Comic Poem, and Bozzy and Piozzy, a satire upon the quarrel between Boswell and Mrs. Piozzi, who had published her Recollections of Samuel Johnson.

Peter Pindar spared no one, high or low. It was even reported that the Ministry bribed or attempted to bribe him into silence by a pension of £200. He became involved in a literary feud with Gifford, which led to a personal encounter in the street, and Peter was left in the gutter, or, as one critic has expressed it-"he returned to what was often the Castalia of his inspiration."

Mrs. Inchbald.

MRS. ELIZABETH INCHBALD, 1756-1821, was a writer of considerable celebrity at the close of the last century.

Mrs. Inchbald was a native of Suffolk, the daughter of Mr. Simpson, a farmer. At the age of sixteen, she came to London and made her début upon the stage. Soon afterwards she married Mr. Inchbald, a leading actor. Mrs. Inchbald was extremely

successful as an actress until her retirement in 1789. From that time she devoted herself exclusively to dramatic literature, publishing a number of comedies and farces, and editing The British Theatre, a collection of plays, in 25 vols., with biographical and critical remarks; also The Modern Theatre, in 10 vols. In 1791 and 1796, respectively, she published the two novels, A Simple Story, and Nature and Art, by which she is best known to the general public. "If Mrs. Radcliffe touched the trembling chords of the imagination, making wild music there, Mrs. Inchbald has no less power over the spring of the heart. She not only moves the affections, but melts us into all the luxury of woe.'"-Hazlett.

MRS. HANNAH COWLEY, 1743-1809, had considerable repute as a dramatic writer at the close of the last century. Her principal pieces are the following: The Runaway, a Comedy; Who's the Dupe; The Belle's Stratagem; A Bold Stroke for a Husband. Fifteen of her plays are enumerated. Her poems are: The Siege of Acre; The Maid of Arragon; The Scottish Village.

MRS. MARY TIGHE, 1810, daughter of the Rev. Wm. Blackford, and wife of Henry Tighe, Member of Parliament from Woodstock, Ireland, wrote a poem, called Psyche, in six cantos, in the Spenserian stanza, highly commended by Sir James Mackintosh and others. She was the subject of a poem by Mrs. Hemans, "The Grave of a Poetess," and of a beautiful lyric by More, "I saw thy Form in Youthful Prime,"

and is perhaps as much known by these tributes as by her own poems, although the latter undoubtedly have considerable merit.

LADY ANNE BARNARD, 1750-1825, of a noble Scottish family, is noted for being the author of the well-known ballad of Auld Robin Gray, and for keeping the authorship a secret for more than fifty years. It was finally disclosed to the world by Sir Walter Scott.

THOMAS DERMODY, 1775–1802, a native of Ireland, gave evidence of poetical powers when very young. His first publication was a volume of poems written when he was in his thirteenth year. He published afterwards The Rights of Justice, a political pamphlet; The Battle of the Bards, a Poem: Peace, a Poem, etc. He fell into habits of intemperance, and died in poverty at the age of twenty-seven.

ARTHUR MURPHY, 1730-1805, a native of Ireland, was a playwright. He commenced life as a clerk în a' banking-house, and was successively writer, actor, and barrister. His plays, chiefly comedies, are not marked by brilliant wit, but are considered good acting pieces, and are still given occasionally. Among them are Know Your Own Mind, All in the Wrong, How to Keep Him. Besides his plays, Murphy was also the author of a translation of Tacitus, which has some merit, and wrote the lives of Johnson and Garrick.

HENRY JAMES PYɛ, LL.D., 1745–1813, a Member of Parliament, and afterwards police magistrate in the city of London, was educated at Oxford, and was a man of literary culture. He published Elegies, 4to; The Art of War, a Poem; Alfred, an Epic Poem; Verses on Social Subjects; Six Olympic Odes of Pindar, translated into English verse; The War Elegies of Tyrtaeus, translation of the Epigrams and Hymns of Homer; Comments on the Commentators of Shakespeare; The Democrat, 2 vols.; Summary of the Duties of a Justice of the Peace out of Sessions.

THOMAS HOLCROFT, 1744-1809, the son of a shoemaker in London, was at first a groom, then an actor, and then an author. He wrote a number of plays, poems, novels and translations from the French and German. The best known of his plays are Duplicity, The School for Arrogance, the Road to Ruin, the Deserted Daughter; of his novels, Alwyn, Hugh Trevor, Bryan Perdue; of his translations, Caroline of Lichfield, Life of Frederic, Baron Trenck, Posthumous Works of Frederic II., of Prussia, Lavater's Essay on Physiognomy, Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea. He also published an account of his travels through Holland and Westphalia, and 3 vols, of his autobiography. His plays are successful stage-pieces, well arranged for action and scenic effect, although the style is that of the eighteenth century, with its slang phrases, romantic damsels, and philosophic waiting maids.

RICHARD GALI, 1776–1801, an Edinburgh printer, who died early, had considerable reputation as a poet, especially as a writer of songs. A longer poem, Arthur's Seat, is highly commended. A volume of his Poems and Songs was published after his death. "Gall must henceforth stand on the list next to Burns, and by the side of Ramsay, Fergusson, Bruce, and Macneill. It is by his songs and short effusions that Gall's name is destined to live. There is nothing better or sweeter in the Scottish language than some of these; and wherever Gall's songs are set to appropriate airs, it is easy, without the spirit of prophecy, to foretell their popularity. My only Joe and Dearie 0, and the Farewell to Ayrshire, are known to every lover of modern Scottish song.". The Scotsman.

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