70 THE MOTHER AND CHILD. And chides, and buffets, clinging by the mane ! Flings off the coat so long his pride and pleasure, SAMUEL ROGERS. [The name of SAMUEL ROGERS, the banker-poet, recalls several successive generations of literary celebrities. Born in 1762, he entered the field of letters while the great "Doctor" still towered on his throne as the Grand Cham of literature, and he survived till 1855, almost seventy years after the production of his first collection of poems, which were published in 1786, the year in which Robert Burns first appeared as an author. Rogers is not a very prolific writer; and his poems are rather remarkable for grace and polish of diction, than for innate power. His best work, the "Italy," was published in 1822. Rogers will long be remembered as a kind patron of his less fortunate compeers in literature and art; his great wealth giving him opportunities of doing good, of which he availed himself in no stinted measure. Many have cause to remember him with gratitude.] ७ A Garden. HE finished garden to the view Its vistas opens, and its valleys green Snatched through the ver- Distracted wanders: now Dimpling along, the breezy The forest darkening round, Th' ethereal mountain, and But why so far excursive? Along these blushing bor- And in yon mingled wilderness of flowers, ७ The daisy, primrose ; violet, darkly blue; And polyanthus, of unnumbered dyes; The yellow wall-flower, stained with iron brown, With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves ; THOMSON. Beauties of the Evening. I WALK, unseen, On the dry smooth-shaven green, Oft on a plat of rising ground Over some wide-water'd shore, Or if the air will not permit, [JOHN MILTON was born in London, in 1608, and died in 1674. His magnificent poetry has been well described as a compound of the majesty of Homer and the sweetness of Virgil, for it was to him that the apt and oft-quoted lines were written : "Three poets, in three distant ages born, Sold for a pittance of fifteen pounds, neglected by the vitiated taste of a licentious age, and only recommended to notice long after the mighty hand that penned it had K Or let my lamp at midnight hour MILTON. [From "Il Penseroso."] Sin. ANLIKE is it to fall into sin, LONGFELLOW. [From Logan's "Aphorisms."] crumbled into dust, Milton's "Paradise Lost" has at length been enshrined as the greatest epic poem in the English language, and its writer as our great national poet. His second great epic, "Paradise Regained," was written at the suggestion of Elwood, the Quaker, who remarked to Milton, "Thou hast said a great deal upon Paradise lost; what hast thou to say upon Paradise found?" The minor poems of Milton "Comus," "Lycidias," "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and the magnificent "Samson Agonistes," are now being generally read and appreciated, after two centuries of neglect and oblivion. |