Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 124

This poet is generally known as 'Scott of Amwell.' This arises from the fact that his father, a draper in Southwark, where John was born in 1730, retired ten years afterwards to Amwell. He had never been inoculated with the small-pox, and such was his dread of the disease, and that of his family, that for twenty years, although within twenty miles of London, he never visited it. His parents, who belonged to the amiable sect of Quakers, sent him to a day-school at Ware, but that too he left upon the first alarm of infection. At seventeen, although his education was much neglected, he began to relish reading, and was materially a.s.sisted in his studies by a neighbour of the name of Frogley, a master bricklayer, who, though somewhat illiterate, admired poetry. Scott sent his first essays to the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and in his thirtieth year published four elegies, which met with a kind reception, although Dr Johnson said only of them, 'They are very well, but such as twenty people might write.' He produced afterwards 'The Garden,' 'Amwell,' and other poems, besides some rather narrow 'Critical Essays on the English Poets.' When thirty-six years of age, he submitted to inoculation, and henceforward visited London frequently, and became acquainted with Dr Johnson, Sir William Jones, Mrs Montague, and other eminent characters. He was a very active promoter of local improvements, and diligent in cultivating his grounds and garden. He was twice married, his first wife being a daughter of his friend Frogley. He died in 1783, not of that disease which he so 'greatly feared,' but of a putrid fever, at Radcliff. One note of his, ent.i.tled 'Ode on Hearing the Drum,' still reverberates on the ear of poetic readers. Wordsworth has imitated it in his 'Andrew Jones.' Sir Walter makes Rachel Geddes say, in 'Redgauntlet,' alluding to books of verse, 'Some of our people do indeed hold that every writer who is not with us is against us, but brother Joshua is mitigated in his opinions, and correspondeth with our friend John Scott of Amwell, who hath himself constructed verses well approved of even in the world.'

ODE ON HEARING THE DRUM.

1 I hate that drum's discordant sound, Parading round, and round, and round: To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields, And lures from cities and from fields, To sell their liberty for charms Of tawdry lace, and glittering arms; And when ambition's voice commands, To march, and fight, and fall, in foreign lands.

2 I hate that drum's discordant sound, Parading round, and round, and round: To me it talks of ravaged plains, And burning towns, and ruined swains, And mangled limbs, and dying groans, And widows' tears, and orphans' moans; And all that misery's hand bestows, To fill the catalogue of human woes.

THE TEMPESTUOUS EVENING.

AN ODE.

1 There's grandeur in this sounding storm, That drives the hurrying clouds along, That on each other seem to throng, And mix in many a varied form; While, bursting now and then between, The moon's dim misty orb is seen, And casts faint glimpses on the green.

2 Beneath the blast the forests bend, And thick the branchy ruin lies, And wide the shower of foliage flies; The lake's black waves in tumult blend, Revolving o'er and o'er and o'er, And foaming on the rocky sh.o.r.e, Whose caverns echo to their roar.

3 The sight sublime enrapts my thought, And swift along the past it strays, And much of strange event surveys, What history's faithful tongue has taught, Or fancy formed, whose plastic skill The page with fabled change can fill Of ill to good, or good to ill.

4 But can my soul the scene enjoy, That rends another's breast with pain?

O hapless he, who, near the main, Now sees its billowy rage destroy!

Beholds the foundering bark descend, Nor knows but what its fate may end The moments of his dearest friend!

ALEXANDER ROSS.

Of this fine old Scottish poet we regret that we can tell our readers so little. He was born in 1698, became parish schoolmaster at Lochlee in Anguss.h.i.+re, and published, by the advice of Dr Beattie, in 1768, a volume ent.i.tled 'Helenore; or, The Fortunate Shepherdess: a Pastoral Tale in the Scottish Dialect; along with a few Songs.' Some of these latter, such as 'Woo'd, and Married, and a',' became very popular. Beattie loved the 'good-humoured, social, happy old man,' who was 'pa.s.sing rich' on twenty pounds a-year, and wrote in the _Aberdeen Journal_ a poetical letter in the Scotch language to promote the sale of his poem. Ross died in 1784, about eighty-six years old, and is buried in a churchyard at the east end of the loch.

Lochlee is a very solitary and romantic spot. The road to it from the low country, or Howe of the Mearns, conducts us through a winding, unequal, but very interesting glen, which, after bearing at its foot many patches of corn, yellowing amidst thick green copsewood and birch trees, fades and darkens gradually into a stern, woodless, and rocky defile, which emerges on a solitary loch, lying 'dern and dreary' amidst silent hills. It is one of those lakes which divide the distance between the loch and the tarn, being two miles in length and one in breadth. The hills, which are stony and savage, sink directly down upon its brink.

A house or two are all the dwellings in view. The celebrated Thomas Guthrie dearly loves this lake, lives beside it for months at a time, and is often seen rowing his lonely boat in the midst of it, by sunlight and by moonlight too. On the west, one bold, sword-like summit, Craig Macskeldie by name, cuts the air, and relieves the monotony of the other mountains. Fit rest has Ross found in that calm, rural burying-place, beside 'the rude forefathers of the hamlet,' with short, sweet, flower- sprinkled gra.s.s covering his dust, the low voice of the lake sounding a few yards from his cold ear, and a plain gravestone uniting with his native mountains to form his memorial. 'Fortunate Shepherd,' (shall we call him?) to have obtained a grave so intensely characteristic of a Scottish poet!

WOO'D, AND MARRIED, AND A'.

1 The bride cam' out o' the byre, And, O, as she dighted her cheeks!

'Sirs, I'm to be married the night, And have neither blankets nor sheets; Have neither blankets nor sheets, Nor scarce a coverlet too; The bride that has a' thing to borrow, Has e'en right muckle ado.'

Woo'd, and married, and a', Married, and woo'd, and a'!

And was she nae very weel off, That was woo'd, and married, and a'?

2 Out spake the bride's father, As he cam' in frae the pleugh: 'O, haud your tongue my dochter, And ye'se get gear eneugh; The stirk stands i' the tether, And our braw bawsint yade, Will carry ye hame your corn-- What wad ye be at, ye jade?'

3 Out spake the bride's mither: 'What deil needs a' this pride?

I had nae a plack in my pouch That night I was a bride; My gown was linsey-woolsey, And ne'er a sark ava; And ye hae ribbons and buskins, Mae than ane or twa.'

4 Out spake the bride's brither, As he cam' in wi' the kye: 'Poor Willie wad ne'er hae ta'en ye, Had he kent ye as weel as I; For ye're baith proud and saucy, And no for a poor man's wife; Gin I canna get a better, I'se ne'er tak ane i' my life.'

THE ROCK AN' THE WEE PICKLE TOW.

1 There was an auld wife had a wee pickle tow, And she wad gae try the spinnin' o't; But lootin' her doun, her rock took a-lowe, And that was an ill beginnin' o't.

She spat on 't, she flat on 't, and tramped on its pate, But a' she could do it wad ha'e its ain gate; At last she sat down on't and bitterly grat, For e'er ha'in' tried the spinnin' o't.

2 Foul fa' them that ever advised me to spin, It minds me o' the beginnin' o't; I weel might ha'e ended as I had begun, And never ha'e tried the spinnin' o't.

But she's a wise wife wha kens her ain weird, I thought ance a day it wad never be spier'd, How let ye the lowe tak' the rock by the beard, When ye gaed to try the spinnin' o't?

3 The spinnin', the spinnin', it gars my heart sab To think on the ill beginnin' o't; I took't in my head to mak' me a wab, And that was the first beginnin' o't.

But had I nine daughters, as I ha'e but three, The safest and soundest advice I wad gi'e, That they wad frae spinnin' aye keep their heads free, For fear o' an ill beginnin' o't.

4 But if they, in spite o' my counsel, wad run The dreary, sad task o' the spinnin' o't; Let them find a lown seat by the light o' the sun, And syne venture on the beginnin' o't.

For wha's done as I've done, alake and awowe!

To busk up a rock at the cheek o' a lowe; They'll say that I had little wit in my pow-- O the muckle black deil tak' the spinnin' o't.

RICHARD GLOVER.

Glover was a man so remarkable as to be thought capable of having written the letters of Junius, although no one now almost names his name or reads his poetry. He was the son of a Hamburgh merchant in London, and born (1712) in St Martin's Lane, Cannon Street. He was educated at a private school in Surrey, but being designed for trade, was never sent to a university, yet by his own exertions he became an excellent cla.s.sical scholar. At sixteen he wrote a poem to the memory of Sir Isaac Newton, and at twenty-five produced nine books of his 'Leonidas.' Partly through its own merits, partly through its liberal political sentiments, and partly through the influence of Lord Cobham, to whom it was inscribed, and the praise of Fielding and Chatham, it became very popular. In 1739, he produced a poem ent.i.tled 'London; or, The Progress of Commerce,' and a spirited ballad ent.i.tled 'Admiral Hosier's Ghost,' which we have given, both designed to rouse the national spirit against the Spaniards.

Glover was a merchant, and very highly esteemed among his commercial brethren, although at one time unfortunate in business. When forced by his failure to seek retirement, he produced a tragedy on the subject of Boadicea, which ran the usual nine nights, although it has long since ceased to be acted or read. In his later years his affairs improved; he returned again to public life, was elected to Parliament, and approved himself a painstaking and popular M.P. In 1770, he enlarged his 'Leonidas' from nine books to twelve, and afterwards wrote a sequel to it, ent.i.tled 'The Athenais.' Glover spent his closing years in opulent retirement, enjoying the intimacy and respect of the most eminent men of the day, and died in 1785.

'Leonidas' may be called the epic of the eighteenth century, and betrays the artificial genius of its age. The poet rises to his flight like a heavy heron--not a hawk or eagle. Pa.s.sages in it are good, but the effect of the whole is dulness. It reminds you of Cowper's 'Homer,' in which all is accurate, but all is cold, and where even the sound of battle lulls to slumber--or of Edwin Atherstone's 'Fall of Nineveh,' where you are fatigued with uniform pomp, and the story struggles and staggers under a load of words. Thomson exclaimed when he heard of the work of Glover, 'He write an epic, who never saw a mountain!' And there was justice in the remark. The success of 'Leonidas' was probably one cause of the swarm of epics which appeared in the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century.--Cottle himself being, according to De Quincey, 'the author of four epic poems, _and_ a new kind of blacking.' Their day seems now for ever at an end.

FROM BOOK XII

Song of the Priestess of the Muses to the chosen band after their return from the inroad into the Persian camp, on the night before the Battle of Thermopylae.

Back to the pa.s.s in gentle march he leads The embattled warriors. They, behind the shrubs, Where Medon sent such numbers to the shades, In ambush lie. The tempest is o'erblown.

Soft breezes only from the Malian wave O'er each grim face, besmeared with smoke and gore, Their cool refreshment breathe. The healing gale, A crystal rill near Oeta's verdant feet, Dispel the languor from their hara.s.sed nerves, Fresh braced by strength returning. O'er their heads Lo! in full blaze of majesty appears Melissa, bearing in her hand divine The eternal guardian of ill.u.s.trious deeds, The sweet Phoebean lyre. Her graceful train Of white-robed virgins, seated on a range Half down the cliff, o'ershadowing the Greeks, All with concordant strings, and accents clear, A torrent pour of melody, and swell A high, triumphal, solemn dirge of praise, Antic.i.p.ating fame. Of endless joys In blessed Elysium was the song. Go, meet Lycurgus, Solon, and Zaleucus sage, Let them salute the children of their laws.

Meet Homer, Orpheus, and the Ascraean bard, Who with a spirit, by ambrosial food Refined, and more exalted, shall contend Your splendid fate to warble through the bowers Of amaranth and myrtle ever young, Like your renown. Your ashes we will cull.

In yonder fane deposited, your urns, Dear to the Muses, shall our lays inspire.

Whatever offerings, genius, science, art Can dedicate to virtue, shall be yours, The gifts of all the Muses, to transmit You on the enlivened canvas, marble, bra.s.s, In wisdom's volume, in the poet's song, In every tongue, through every age and clime, You of this earth the brightest flowers, not cropt, Transplanted only to immortal bloom Of praise with men, of happiness with G.o.ds.

ADMIRAL HOSIER'S GHOST.

ON THE TAKING OF PORTO-BELLO FROM THE SPANIARDS BY ADMIRAL VERNON--Nov. 22, 1739.

1 As near Porto-Bello lying On the gently swelling flood, At midnight with streamers flying, Our triumphant navy rode: There while Vernon sat all-glorious From the Spaniards' late defeat; And his crews, with shouts victorious, Drank success to England's fleet: