Beats thick! his roomy chest by far too scant That's hamper'd, struggles hard to get away:
To give the lungs full play. What now avail Whilst the glad gates of sight are wide expanded
The strong-built sinewy limbs, and well-spread To let new glories in, the first fair fruits

shoulders ? Of the fast-coming harvest. Then, oh then!
See how he tugs for life, and lays about him, Each earth-born joy grows vile, or disappears,
Mad with his pain! Eager he catches hold Shrunk to a thing of nought. Oh! how he longs
Of what comes next to hand, and grasps it hard, To have his passport sign'd, and be dismiss'd!
Just like a creature drowning; hideous sight! 'Tis done! and now he's happy! The glad soul
Oh! how his eyes stand out, and stare full Has not a wish uncrown'd. Ev'n the lag flesh

ghastly! Rests too in hope of meeting once again While the distemper's rank and deadly venom Its better half, never to sunder more. Shoots like a burning arrow cross his bowels, Nor shall it hope in vain: The time draws on And drinks his marrow up Heard you that when not a single spot of burial earth,

groan?

Whether on land, or in the spacious sea,
It was his last. See how the great Goliah, But must give back its long committed dust
Just like a child that brawl'd itself to rest, Inviolate: and faithfully shall these
Lies still,

Make up the full account; not the least atom
Embezzl’d, or mislaid, of the whole tale.
Each soul shall have his own. Hence, ye profane!
Ask not, how this can be? Sure the same pow'r
That rear'd the piece at first, and took it down,

Can re-assemble the loose scatter'd parts,

Sure the last end And put them as they were. Of the good man is peace! How calm his exit! Night-dews fall not more gentle to the ground, Nor weary worn-out winds expire so soft. Behold him in the evening-tide of life, A life well-spent, whose early care it was His riper years should not upbraid his green: Thus, at the shut of ev'n, the weary bird By unperceiv'd degrees he wears away; Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake Yet, like the sun, seems larger at his setting. Cow'rs down, and dozes till the dawn of day, High in his faith and hopes, look how he reaches Then claps his well-fledg'd wings, and bears After the prize in view! and, like a bird

away.

*

*

Thomson,

James Thomson, der Sohn eines Predigers, ward 1700 zu Ednam bei Kelso in Roxburgshire geboren und offenbarte schon sehr früh poetisches Talent. Er studirte Theologie in Edinburg, aber ein strenger Vorwurf eines Professors, dass er viel zu poetisch schreibe, um von dem Volke verstanden zu werden, verleidete ihm diesen Beruf und veranlasste ihn, nach London zu gehen, um dort durch literarische Arbeiten seinen Unterhalt zu suchen. Der erste Theil seines grösseren Gedichtes, die Jahreszeiten, der Winter, erschien 1725 und fand zwar anfangs nur langsam, dann aber desto allgemeineren Beifall, so dass die von 1727 bis 1730 nachfolgenden anderen Theile seinen gegründeten Ruf nur befestigten. In der Zwischenzeit veröffentlichte er ein Trauerspiel, Sophonisbe, und mehrere andere Gedichte. Nachdem er den Sohn des Lord Kanzlers Talbot als

dessen Führer auf Reisen begleitet, erhielt er ein Amt, das er später mit einem noch besseren vertauschte. Er verlebte nun seine übrigen Tage in Ruhe und Wohlstand und starb 1748 zu Richmond, wo er auch begraben liegt. In der Westmister-Abtei ward ihm ein Monument gesetzt.

Seine gesammelten Werke, welche zuerst London 1730 erschienen und später sehr oft wieder aufgelegt wurden, enthalten ausser den bereits angeführten Dichtungen noch vier Trauerspiele, eine Allegorie the Castle of Indolence, ein Maskenspiel Alfred, cin Gedicht auf Newton's Tod u. A. m. Thomson ist als Dichter durchaus neben Pope zu stellen: er besitzt dieselben glänzenden Eigenschaften, aber er hat weit mehr tiefes Gefühl und Begeisterung als dieser, die er noch weit schöpferischer und eigenthümlicher würde haben walten lassen, wenn er einem anderen Zeitalter angehört hätte. Sein berühmtestes und noch immer mit Recht gefeiertes Werk, sind die Jahreszeiten, bei deren Besprechung der feine englische Kritiker Samuel Johnson von ihm sagt: "He is entitled to one praise of the highest kind — his mode of thinking and of expressing his thoughts is original. His numbers, his pauses, his diction are of his own growth, without transcription, without imitation. He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius. He looks round on nature and on life with the eye which nature only bestows on a poet; the eye that distinguishes in every thing presented to its view whatever there is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast and attends to the minute."

A IIym n.

The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring: (From the Seasons.)

Flings from the Sun direct the flaming day;

Feeds every creature; hurls the tempests forth: These, as they change, Almighty Father, these And, as on Earth this grateful change revolves, Are but the varied God. The rolling year With transport touches all the springs of life. Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring Nature, attend! join every living soul, Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm; In adoration join, and, ardent, raise Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales, And every sense, and every heart is joy. Breathe soft! whose Spirit in your freshness Then comes thy glory in the Summer-months,

breathes : With light and heat refulgent. Then thy Sun Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms; Shoots full perfection through the swelling year: Where, o’er the rock, the scarcely waving pine And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks; Fills the brown shade with a religious awe. And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering Who shake th' astonish'd world, lift high to gales.

Heaven Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfin'd, Th’ impetuous song, and say from whom you And spreads a common feast for all that lives.

rage. In Winter awful thou! with clouds and storms His praise, ye brooks, attunc, ye trembling Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rollid, Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing, And let me catch it as I muse along. Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore, Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound; And humblest nature with thy northern blast. Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Mysterious round! what skill, what force Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,

divine,

A secret world of wonders in thyself, Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train, Sound his stupendous praise; whose greater Yet so delightful mix’d, with such kind art,

voice Such beauty and beneficence combin'd;

Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall. Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into shade; Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and And all so forming an harmonious whole;

flowers, That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. In mingled clouds to Him; whose Sun exalts, But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze, Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand,

paints. That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres; Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to Him; Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,

rills;

As home he goes beneath the joyous Moon. And better thence again, and better still,
Ye that keep watch in Heaven, as Earth asleep In infinite progression. But I lose
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams, Myself in him, in Light ineffable;
Ye constellations, while your angels strike, Come then, expressive Silence, muse his praise.
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On Nature write with every beam his praise.
The thunder rolls: be hush'd the prostrate

world!

From the Castle of Indolence. While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn: Bleat out afresh, ye hills: ye mossy rocks, O mortal man, who livest here by toil, Retain the sound: the broad responsive low, Do not complain of this thy hard estate; Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns, That like an emmet thou must ever moil, And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come. Is a sad sentence of an ancient date; Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song And, certes, there is for it reason great; Burst from the groves! and when the restless day, For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and Espiring, lays the warbling world asleep,

wail, Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm

And curse thy star, and early drudge and late, The listening shades, and teach the night his Withouten that would come an heavier bale,

praise.

Loose life, unruly passions and diseases pale. Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles, At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all, In lowly dale, fast by a river's side, Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast, With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round, Assembled men, to the deep organ join

A most enchanting wizard did abide, The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear, Than whom a fiend more fell is no where At solemn pauses, through the swelling base;

found. And, as each mingling flame increases each,

I ween, a lovely spot of ground; In one united ardour rise to Heaven.

And there a season atween June and May, Or if you rather choose the rural shade,

Half prankt with spring, with summer half And find a fane in every secret grove;

embrown'd, There let the shepherd's fute, the virgin's lay, A listless climate made, where, sooth to say, The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre, No living wight could work, ne cared ev'n for Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll.

play. For me, when I forget the darling theme, Whether the blossom blows, the Summer-ray Was nought around but images of rest: Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams; Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns beOr Winter rises in the blackening east;

tween; Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more, And flowery beds that slumberous influence And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat.

kest, Should Fate command me to the farthest From poppies breath'd; and beds of pleasant verge

green, Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, Where never yet was creeping creature seen. Rivers unknown to song; where first the Sun Meantime unnumber'd glittering streamlets Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam

play'd ; Flames on th’ Atlantic isles; 'tis nought to me; And hurled every where their waters sheen; Since God is ever present, ever felt,

That, as they bicker'd through the sunny In the void waste, as in the city full;

shade, And where he vital breathes, there must be joy. Though restless still themselves, a lulling murWhen ev'n at last the solemn hour shall come,

mur made.
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey: there, with new powers, Join'd to the prattle of the purling rills,
Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go

Were heard the lowing herds along the vale, Where Universal Love not smiles around,

And flocks loud-bleating from the distant hills, Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns ; And vacant shepherds piping in the dale: From seeming evil still educing good,

And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,

It was,

walk,

Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep, Amid the broom he bask'd him on the ground, That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale; Where the wild thyme and camomoil are And still a coil the grasshopper did keep;

found: Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep. There would he linger, till the latest ray

Of light sat trembling on the welkin's bound; Full in the passage of vale, above,

Then homeward through the twilight shadows A sable, silent, solemn forest stood;

stray, Where nought but shadowy forms was seen Sauntering and slow. So had he passed many to move,

a day! As Idless fancied in her dreaming mood : And up the hills, on either side, a wood

Yet not in thoughtless slumber were they Of blackening pines, ay waving to and fro,

past: Sent forth a sleepy horrour through the blood;

For oft the heavenly fire, that lay conceal’d And where this valley winded out, below, Beneath the sleeping embers, mounted fast, The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely And all its native light anew reveal’d:

heard, to flow.

Oft as he travers’d the cerculean field,

And markt the clouds that drove before the A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was,

wind, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;

Ten thousand glorious systems would he build, And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,

Ten thousand great ideas fill'd his mind; For ever flushing round a summer-sky:

But with the clouds they fled, and left no trace There eke the soft delights, that witchingly

behind. Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast, And the calm pleasures always hover'd nigh; With him was sometimes join'd, in silent

But whate'er smack'd of noyance, or unrest Was far far off expell’d from this delicious nest.

(Profoundly silent, for they never spoke,)

One shyer still, who quite detested talk: The landskip such, inspiring perfect ease,

Oft, stung by spleen, at once away he broke, Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight)

To groves of pine, and broad o'ershadowing Close-hid his castle mid embowering trees,

oak; That half shut out the beams of Phoebus There, inly thrill’d, he wander'd all alone,

bright,

And on himself his pensive fury wroke, And made a kind of checker'd day and night;

Ne ever utter'd word, save when first shone Meanwhile, unceasing at the massy gate,

The glittering star of eve “Thank Heaven! Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight

the day is done." Was plac'd; and to his lute, of cruel fate, And labour harsh, complain'd, lamenting man's Ah! what avail the largest gifts of Heaven,

estate.

When drooping health and spirits go amiss ?

How tasteless then whatever can be given! Of all the gentle tenants of the place,

Health is the vital principle of bliss, There was a man of special grave remark:

And exercise of health. In proof of this, A certain tender gloom o'erspread his face,

Behold the wretch, who slugs his life away, Pensive, not sad, in thought involv'd, not

Soon swallow'd in disease's sad abyss; dark:

While he whom toil has brac'd, or manly As soot this man could sing as morning-lark,

play, And teach the noblest morals of the heart:

Has light as air each limb, each thought as But these his talents were yburied stark;

clear as day. Of the fine stores he nothing would impart, Which or boon Nature gave, or Nature-painting 0, who can speak the vigorous joy of health?

Art.

Unclogg'd the body, unobscur'd the mind :

The morning rises gay, with pleasing stealth, To noontide shades incontinent he ran,

The temperate evening falls serene and kind. Where purls the brook with sleep-inviting In health the wiser brutes true gladness find.

sound;

See! how the younglings frisk along the Or when Dan Sol to slope his wheels began,

meads,

David Mallet stammte aus Schottland und ward um 1700 geboren; weiter ist Nichts über seine früheren Lebensumstände bekannt. 1720 war er Hofmeister bei einer Familie in der Nähe von Edinburg und wurde dann Führer der beiden Söhne des Herzogs von Montrose, die er auf ihren Reisen begleitete. Dadurch knüpfte er vortheilhafte Verbindungen an, die ihm das Amt eines zweiten Secretairs bei dem Prinzen von Wales verschafften. Später erhielt er eine noch einträglichere Stelle im Londoner Hafen. Er starb 1765.

Mallet gehört zu den sogenannten Miscellaneous poets jener Zeit; seine Dichtungen sind nicht eben ausgezeichnet; sie enthalten zwei grössere Arbeiten, The Excursion und Amyntor and Theo. dora, kleinere lyrische Poesieen und besonders zwei Balladen, die als sehr gelungen zu betrachten sind und sein Andenken erhalten haben; wir theilen dieselben hier mit. Seine Werke erschienen zuerst London 1759, 3 Bde in 8. Die Poesieen finden sich im 33. Bande der Johnson'schen, im 101. Bde der Bell'schen und im 11. Bde der Anderson'schen Sammlung. Als Prosaist war Mallet unbedeutend und seine Biogrophie Bacon's ist eine misrathene Arbeit.