Select Biography.

"No part of History is more instructive and delightful than the Lives of great and worthy Men."

BURNETT.

LIFE OF ALEXANDER POPE.

During her life the letters were cut new every three or four years, but they have since been suffered to decay. As his poems became circulated, his acquaintance was courted by the most distinguished characters of the day; nor can we be surprised at their admiration of a youth who produced the alterations from "Chaucer's Wife, of Bath," and the translations from "Sappho to Pheron,” at the age of fourteen; the "Pastorals,' at sixteen; and the "Essay on Criticism," at nineteen.

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In the year 1711, he produced the Rape of the Lock," which at once placed him, in point of invention, at the head of living Poets, and which yet remains without a rival. In 1713 he issued proposals for his translation of the

This highly distinguished Poet was born in London, in the year 1688, where his father was a tradesman, and acquired considerable property, with which he retired to a purchase he had made at Binfield, in Windsor Forest. Our Poet, being from infancy, of a sickly habit, was educated mostly at home; and his father being a rigid Catholic, and attached to the cause of James II. very naturally imparted to his son Iliad," and the first four books those principles of religion and came out in 1715. The success. politics which he retained through- of this work was such as to enable out his life. His son began early him to leave Binfield altogether, to read and he had scarcely perus-and reside at a house at Twickened some of the English Poets ham; where the formation of his before he courted the Muse, and celebrated garden and grotto beexhibited some specimens of vercame the amusement and pride of sification and fancy, as are rarely many years of his life. Here he found at his age. His Pastorals obtained the friendship and intiwere shewn in manuscript to Sir macy of Lord Burlington, Lord W. Turnbull, in the year 1704; Peterborough, and the other disand Whycherley, Walsh, and tinguished characters, whose letothers, were proud to encourage ters make up his published corpromising a genius. He soon after respondence. began his "Windsor Forest," which, it is said, he used to compose under a beech tree, on which Lady Gower carved these words:

SO

His life, indeed, passed in such prosperity as few men of genius have ever attained by their own efforts. His wealth, which was very considerable, was the fair

I

reward of his talent, bestowed by portant step towards perfection,

the public.

by refining its language and smoothing the way towards those efforts of the sublime and the pathetic, which before his time. were obscured by uncouth measures, or mixed with pedantic quaintness.

TRUTH AND FICTION.

(Continued from page 56.)

About the year 1743, his constitution which was always infirm, began to give way to disease; and although he lingered through several months, death had made very rapid progress, in the month of May, 1744. On the sixth of that month he was all day delirious, which he mentioned a few days after, as a sufficient humiliation of the vanity of man. He died in the evening of the 30th, so But in truth, the vessel was placidly, that the attendants did driving too fast on the land, in not discern his last moments. He spite of all the efforts of the seawas buried at Twickenham, near men to keep her off, for they had his father and mother, where a yet a low reef of rocks to weather, monument has been erected to which stretched out from the him by his commentator, Doctor shore, something less than a quarWarburton. ter of a mile, and on which the As few men enjoyed a more surf was beating most tremendenvied superiority during their ously. Till these were past, the lives, it may be said, with equal usual dangers of a lee-shore were truth, that few have been more doubled on them. At this critigenerally honoured by posterity. cal juncture, the wind veered a In every collection of poetry, point in their favor: the beacon, Pope stands unrivalled. No au- too, from the light-house, marked thor is oftener read, nor more fre- to the experienced seamen the quently quoted. But, whatever extent of their danger, as was evimay be said by his adversaries, dent by their efforts to keep out the author of the " Rape of the to sea, and their safety became Lock," and of the "Eloïsa," almost certain. But this delay cannot be denied such powers of was sorely vexatious to the iminvention and of pathos as are patient spirit of poor Lucy. 'Slow," rarely to be met with. slow,' she exclaimed; but "tis' your fault, father; you were always cruel to your child; first

As the refiner of versification, and the Poet of reason, sense, and satire, Pope stands at the head you took my Richard from me, of a School the most numerous of then my child, then my reason, any. Pope has the honour of and I have been looking for it advancing English Poetry one im- over many a weary mile of land,

never find her grave. But I'll be revenged; I'll quench the fire on your hearth, and the light on your tower.'

strangers in the

and have not found it. Some Ellis in high altercation with three told me it was buried with my wild-looking babe. It may be so, for I could dress of seamen; two she could easily distinguish, but the third, who stood opposite to her father, and who was by far the most violent, was so placed that she could She hastened to execute this only see his back; he was evifrantic threat by cutting the rope dently the leader of the party by that governed the windlass; in his vehemence in the dispute an instant the lamp flew down about the beacon, to the absence and was dashed to shivers, leaving of which, and not without cause, the whole coast in utter darkness, he attributed the loss of his vessel and the little brig in imminent and her cargo. peril of shipwreck. At first the maniac was startled at her own act; something like a sense of her mischief came across her brain, but the feeling was only transient, and she resumed her look-out for the vessel, that for some time was invisible to her

So, you old scoundrel, after having brought my vessel home in spite of winds and waters, I am to founder in sight of land, because you are too lazy a lubber to do your duty. Why were you not aloft in the lighthouse looking after your beacon ?

Richard Clifton !' said the old man, who had by this time recognised his voice.

'And who told you I was Richard Clifton you villainous old wrecker?

the deepest flashes of the lightning. Still she kept her watch at the window, her eyes fixed on the black waste of waters; they were agitated more furiously than ever, and rolled, -What!-Eh!-Yes, it is old mountain-like, against the cliffs, Ellis !-Huzza, my boys, we have as if contending with them for him at last; there is but another the empire of the land. At last besides himself and that's the Deher eye caught a glimpse of the vil.-I tell you what, my old one; vessel, nailed as it were to a rock, you had better have sate on a barbut the ship past away even be-rel of gunpowder with a lighted fore the lightning that had shown fuse at your tail, than have crossed it, still she watched.

my path,'

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Nearly half an hour had thus Why, what will you do?' elapsed, when she was roused 'Do! It was you who set on from this dreamy state by the my creditors to hound me like a sound of voices in the room be-pirate-you denied me Lucylow a large crevice in the bro- you drove me to be a villain; ken floor allowed her to see old and now that the wind had set

fair, and my uncle, the planter, had left me his money, and I was coming home with a wet sail, it is you, you wrecker, that dowsed the beacon, and

in the wretched being, that, on her recovery to life, lay shivering and moaning in utter and hopeless madness. All his efforts to make himself known to her were with

I did no such thing,' interrupt-out avail; she saw in him only the ed Ellis.

You lie !—you did; you want ed to have the picking of our wreck, but if you get more out of it than timber for your coffin-'

murderer of her father, and, as her mood changed, she either heard him with curses, or mocked him with ideot malignity, that was

even more dreadful than her execrations.

And with this he snatched up an axe, and split the old man's "I see it now,' exclaimed Clifton skull without allowing him a in the agony of his heart, I sepause for answer the blow was duced your innocence-drove you so effectual that the victim in- to madness-and now that madness stantly rolled at his feet a lifeless is made the instrument of vengecorpse; but the passion of venance. It drowns my fortunegeance was over with its gratifi- makes me a murderer-gives me. cation; Clifton, though a daring, to the gallows-the gallows! and, in some sense of the word, Messmates, this is no place for me. a hard-hearted man, was not to--I must be off before any one tally devoid of feeling, and would finds the rotten old corse behave given his chance of life for low! But whither! No matter, years for the power of recalling whither; I must be off, or I shall the last five minutes: he gazed be taken, and I'll not die on a galon the works of his own hands lows, if it were only for the sake with a sense of horror, that had of her who bore me.' hitherto been a stranger to him, when a loud scream from the room above, by diverting his attention gave relief to the poignancy of his feeling. The shriek was repeated;—every hand was instinctively placed on its cutlass. A third time, and the fall of a heavy body was heard over their heads.-To catch up the candle, and rush to the side of the unfortunate maniac was but the work of an instant, and a very little more time was re-imagined negligence. On enter quisite to shew him his own Lucying the light-house, the first.

But it was too late; five minutes before, and escape was not only. possible, but without difficulty; now there was not the slightest. chance either for cunning or desperation; a party of king's seamen, who were on the preventive service against the smugglers, had observed the sudden disappearance of the beacon; and supposing it was some fault of the keeper, had come to warn him of his

"The town of Stratford-uponAvon, which is rendered interesting by its having been the birthplace and residence of our immortal Bard, is pleasantly situated

thing they saw was the body of| the murdered Ellis, as he lay on the floor, bathed in blood, and his head cleft asunder; this naturally led to the seizure of Clifton and his party, and the latter, in their near the south-west border of the anxiety to avoid all share in the county of Warwick, on a gentle probable punishment, did not hesi- ascent from the banks of the tate to bear witness against the "sweet flowing Avon;" at the captain. Such evidence was of entrance to the town is situated a course fatal; a very few days suf- bridge which consists of stone, and ficed to the whole business, for the from this spot is obtained the most affair had happened a short time perfect view of the town, which only before the assizes, so that the extends itself immediately before trial followed close on the heels of it. The place presents a very the murder. Richard Clifton was neat and picturesque appearance, condemned and ordered for exe- and the country round it adds a cution on the rock before the very diversified scene, being parlight-house. ticularly fertile, and the scenery, although it does not convey the idea of grandeur, is still agreeable and interesting.

To be continued in our next.

To the Editor of the Oxford Entertaining Miscellany.

SIR,

Its name is generally supposed to have been derived from the situation it occupies on the great north road leading from London to Birmingham; strate, or stræte, In the 3rd Number of in the Saxon language, signifying your instructing and amusing pub-a road or highway, and the word lication, I perceive the Memoir ford alluding to the passage of the immortal Shakspeare; per- through the Avon, parallel with haps the following account of his the great bridge, at the entrance native town, (Stratford) may not to the town. The antiquity which be uninteresting to your readers, it can boast is very considerable as, from the records of a monasteand by inserting it you will oblige ry founded there shortly after the JACOBUS, conversion of the Saxons to the Christian faith, A.D. 659, (but which has since been demolished, and the scite on which it was built

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON. "Here his infant lays sweet Shakspeare sung,

Here the last accents faultered on his is now only known by conjecture,)

tongue."

it can be traced to a period as re