The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, Sat by his fire, and talked the night away; Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won. His pity gave ere charity began. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all; Beside the bed where parting life was laid, At church, with meek and unaffected grace, The service past, around the pious man, With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran; Even children followed with endearing wile, And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile; But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion skilled to rule, I knew him well, and every truant knew. Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage; In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, Where many a time he triumphed, is forgot. Another sweet poem of Goldsmith's, the ballad of Edwin and Angelina, might claim particular attention; but we can only refer to it as a production unsurpassed in ease and simplicity, and touching pathos. Lecture the Chirty-Winth. WILLIAM FALCONER-JOHN CUNNINGHAM-JOHN SCOTT-SAMUEL BISHOP-ROBERT LLOYD CHARLES CHURCHILL - JOHN LANGHORNE- SIR WILLIAM JONESTHOMAS CHATTERTON -ALEXANDER ROSS JOHN SKINNER JOHN LOWEROBERT CRAWFORD-SIR GILBERT ELLIOT-ROBERT FERGUSSON. FALCO ALCONER, the poet to whom our attention is next to be directed, Born in obscurity, and reared without education, he yet, in comparatively early life, produced a poem which has won for itself a permanent place in English literature. The terrific circumstances attending a shipwreck had been, before the appearance of his work, often described by poets, both ancient and modern, but never with any attempt at professional accuracy or minuteness of detail. It was reserved for a genuine sailor to disclose, in correct and harmonious verse, the 'secrets of the deep,' and to enlist the sympathies of the general reader in favor of the daily life and occupations of his brother seamen. The ocean, which is the scene of the poem, naturally excites sublime poetical aspirations; but its interest soon wanders from this source, and centres in the stately ship and her crew-the gallant resistance the men made to the fury of the storm-their calm and deliberate courage-the various resources of their skill and ingenuity-their consultations and resolutions as the ship labors in distress-and the brave, unselfish piety and generosity with which they met their fate, when at last— The crashing ribs divide She loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o'er the tide. Such a subject Falconer justly considered as 'new to epic lore;' but it possessed strong attractions to the English public, whose national pride and honor are so closely identified with the sea, and so many of whom have 'some friend, some brother there.' WILLIAM FALCONER was the son of a poor Edinburgh barber, and was born in that city, in 1730. He left his home in his childhood, and went to VOL. II.-2B sea as a cabin boy, on board of a Leith merchant ship, but soon after entered the royal navy. Before he was eighteen years of age, he, by good conduct and attention to his duties, raised himself to the position of second mate, in the Britannia, a vessel that traded to the Levant. The vessel was, however, soon after shipwrecked off Cape Colonna, as described in his poem; and Falconer returned to Edinburgh, where, in 1751, he published his first attempt at poetry, in the form of a monody on the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. The choice of such a subject by a young friendless sailor, was as singular as is the depth of grief he describes in his poem. In 1757 Falconer was promoted to the quarter-deck of the Ramilies, and being now in a superior situation for cultivating his taste for learning, he was an assiduous student. Three years afterwards he suffered a second shipwreck, as the Ramilies, while endeavoring to make the harbor of Plymouth, struck upon the shore; and out of a crew of seven hundred and thirty-four men, the poet and twenty-five others were all that escaped. 1n 1762 Falconer published his great poem The Shipwreck, with a dedication to the Duke of York. The work was eminently successful, and his royal highness procured him the appointment of midshipman on board the Royal George, whence he was subsequently transferred to the Glory, a frigate of thirty-two guns, on board of which he held the situation of purser. The peace between England and France relieved him, for a short time, from active service, during which he resided in London, wrote an indifferent satire upon Wilkes, Churchill, and their associates, and compiled a valuable Marine Dictionary. In September, 1769, the poet again went to sea, sailing from England in the Aurora frigate, bound to India. The vessel reached the Cape of Good Hope the following December, but was afterwards lost in Mosambique Channel, and no 'tuneful Arion' escaped to commemorate the sad calamity. 'The Shipwreck' possesses the rare merit of being a pleasing and interesting poem, and, at the same time, a safe guide to practical seamen. Its nautical rules and directions are approved of by all naval officers. In his first edition the author merely described, in nautical phraseology and simple narrative, the melancholy disaster he had witnessed in connection with the loss of the Britannia. The characters of Albert, Rodmond, Palemon, and Anna, were added in a subsequent edition of the work. By choosing the shipwreck of the Britannia, Falconer imparted a train of the most interesting recollections and images to his poem. The wreck occurred off Cape Colonna, one of the fairest portions of the beautiful shores of Greece. 'In all Attica,' says Lord Byron, 'if we except Athens itself and Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato's conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the beauty of the prospect over 'isles that crown the Ægean deep; but for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of |