PESTILENCE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent
Their ancient rage at Bosworth's purple field;
While, for which tyrant England should receive,
Her legions in incestuous murders mixed,
And daily horrors; till the fates were drunk
With kindred blood by kindred hands profused:
Another plague of more gigantic arm

Arose, a monster never known before,
Reared from Cocytus its portentous head;

This rapid fury not, like other pests,
Pursued a gradual course, but in a day

Rushed as a storm o'er half the astonished isle,
And strewed with sudden carcases the land.

First through the shoulders, or whatever part
Was seized the first, a fervid vapour sprung;
With rash combustion thence, the quivering spark
Shot to the heart, and kindled all within;
And soon the surface caught the spreading fires.
Through all the yielding pores the melted blood
Gushed out in smoky sweats; but nought assuaged
The torrid heat within, nor aught relieved
The stomach's anguish. With incessant toil,
Desperate of ease, impatient of their pain,

They tossed from side to side. In vain the stream
Ran full and clear, they burnt, and thirsted still.

The restless arteries with rapid blood

Beat strong and frequent. Thick and pantingly

The breath was fetched, and with huge labourings heaved.
At last a heavy pain oppressed the head,

A wild delirium came: their weeping friends
Were strangers now, and this no home of theirs.
Harassed with toil on toil, the sinking powers
Lay prostrate and o'erthrown; a ponderous sleep
Wrapt all the senses up: they slept and died.
In some a gentle horror crept at first
O'er all the limbs; the sluices of the skin
Withheld their moisture, till by art provoked
The sweats o'erflowed, but in a clammy tide;
Now free and copious, now restrained and slow;
Of tinctures various, as the temperature

Had mixed the blood, and rank with fetid streams:

As if the pent up humours by delay

Were grown more fell, more putrid, and malign.

Here lay their hopes (though little hope remained),

With full effusion of perpetual sweats

To drive the venom out. And here the fates

Were kind, that long they lingered not in pain.

For, who survived the sun's diurnal race,

Rose from the dreary gates of hell redeemed;

Some the sixth hour oppressed, and some the third.

Of many thousands, few untainted 'scaped;

Of those infected, fewer 'scaped alive;

Of those who lived, some felt a second blow;
And whom the second spared, a third destroyed.
Frantic with fear, they sought by flight to shun
The fierce contagion. O'er the mournful land,
The infected city poured her hurrying swarms:
Roused by the flames that fired her seats around,
The infected country rushed into the town.
Some sad at home, and in the desert some
Abjured the fatal commerce of mankind.

In vain; where'er they fled, the fates pursued.
Others, with hopes more specious, crossed the main,

To seek protection in far distant skies;

But none they found. It seemed the general air,
From pole to pole, from Atlas to the east,
Was then at enmity with English blood;
For but the race of England all were safe
In foreign climes; nor did this fury taste
The foreign blood which England then contained.
Where should they fly? The circumambient heaven
every breeze was bane:

Involved them still, and

Where find relief? The salutary art

Was mute, and, startled at the new disease,

In fearful whispers hopeless omens gave.

To heaven, with suppliant rites they sent their prayers;
Heaven heard them not. Of every hope deprived,
Fatigued with vain resources, and subdued
With woes resistless, and enfeebling fear
Passive they sunk beneath the weighty blow.
Nothing but lamentable sounds were heard,
Nor aught was seen but ghastly views of death.
Infectious horror ran from face to face,
And pale despair. 'Twas all the business then
To tend the sick, and in their turns to die.
In heaps they fell; and oft the bed, they say,
The sickening, dying, and the dead contained.

Glover, the author of Leonidas, an epic poem, and Shenstone, whose Pastoral Ballad, in four parts, is one of the finest poems of that class in the language, next invite your attention.

RICHARD GLOVER was the son of a London merchant, and was born in that city, in 1712. He was educated at Cheam school, where his verses, on the memory of Newton, whose death had recently occurred, excited very great interest and attention. He was designed for mercantile pursuits, but marrying, in 1737, a lady of fortune, he changed his intention, entered parliament as member for Weymouth, and soon became distinguished for his spirit and independence. He was, from this period, more or less a popular leader, until his death, which occurred in 1785.

Leonidas,' which was published in 1737, was soon followed by The Athenais, another epic, equally elaborate. These poems are both written in blank verse, and in the subject have reference to the memorable defence of

Thermopyle, and the subsequent war between the Greeks and the Persians. Their length, their want of sustained interest, and lesser peculiarities, not suited to the taste of the present period, have caused them to fall into comparative obscurity. Yet the calm, moral dignity, the patriotic elevation of sentiment, the smoothness of versification, and the vigor of diction of Leonidas,' should still command admiration. The following passage is lofty and energetic in the extreme :—

ADDRESS OF LEONIDAS.

He alone

Remains unshaken. Rising, he displays

His godlike presence. Dignity and grace
Adorn his frame, and manly beauty, joined
With strength Herculean. On his aspect shines
Sublimest virtue and desire of fame,
Where justice gives the laurel; in his eye
The inextinguishable spark, which fires

The souls of patriots; while his brow supports
Undaunted valour, and contempt of death.
Serene he rose, and thus addressed the throng:
'Why this astonishment on every face,
Ye men of Sparta? Does the name of death
Create this fear and wonder? O my friends!
Why do we labour through the arduous paths
Which lead to virtue? Fruitless were the toil.
Above the reach of human feet were placed
The distant summit, if the fear of death
Could intercept our passage. But in vain
His blackest frowns and terrors he assumes
To shake the firmness of the mind which knows
That, wanting virtue, life is pain and woe;
That, wanting liberty, even virtue mourns,
And looks around for happiness in vain.

Then speak, O Sparta! and demand my life;

My heart, exulting, answers to thy call,

And smiles on glorious fate. To live with fame
The gods allow to many; but to die
With equal lustre is a blessing Heaven
Selects from all the choicest boons of fate,
And with a sparing hand on few bestows.'
Salvation thus to Sparta he proclaimed.
Joy, wrapt awhile in admiration, paused,
Suspending praise; nor praise at last resounds
In high acclaim to rend the arch of heaven;
A reverential murmur breathes applause.

The nature of the poem, and the country in which the scene is laid, afford scope for interesting situations and descriptions of natural objects; and of these Glover occasionally avails himself with the happiest effect. The following sketch of the fountain at the dwelling of Oileus is classically elegant:

Beside the public way an oval fount
Of marble sparkled with a silver spray
Of falling rills, collected from above.

The army halted, and their hollow casques
Dipped in the limpid stream. Behind it rose
An edifice, composed of native roots,
And oaken trunks of knotted girth unwrought.
Within were beds of moss. Old battered arms
Hung from the roof. The curious chiefs approach.

These words, engraven on a tablet rude,
Megistias reads; the rest in silence hear:

'Yon marble fountain, by Oileus placed,

To thirsty lips in living water flows;

For weary steps he framed this cool retreat;

A grateful offering here to rural peace,

His dinted shield and helmet he resigned.

O passenger! if born to noble deeds,

Thou would'st obtain perpetual grace from Jove,

Devote thy vigour to heroic toils,

And thy decline to hospitable cares.

Rest here; then seek Oileus in his vale.'

From the 'Athenais,' which is a continuation of the same classic story and landscape, we select the following exquisite description of a night scene :

Silver Phoebe spreads

A light, reposing on the quiet lake,
Save where the snowy rival of her hue,
The gliding swan, behind him leaves a trail
In luminous vibration. Lo! an isle
Swells on the surface. Marble structures there
New gloss of beauty borrow from the moon
To deck the shore. Now silence gently yields
To measured strokes of oars. The orange groves,
In rich profusion round the fertile verge,
Impart to fanning breezes fresh perfumes
Exhaustless, visiting the scene with sweets,
Which soften even Briareus; but the son
Of Gobryas, heavy with devouring care,
Uncharmed, unheeding sits.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE was born at Leasowes, in the parish of HalesOwen, Shropshire, in November, 1714. He was taught to read at what is termed a dame's school, and his venerable preceptress has been immortalized by his poem The Schoolmistress. After suitable preparation he was sent to Pembroke College, Oxford, where he remained four years, but does not appear to have distinguished himself. In 1745, by the death of his parents and an elder brother, the paternal estate came into his possession; and he began from this time, as Dr. Johnson characteristically remarks, 'to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters; which he did with such judgment and fancy, as made his little do

main the envy of the great and the admiration of the skillful; a place to be visited by travellers, and copied by designers.'

These great expenditures upon the grounds of Shenstone's estate were not, however, judiciously made; for the property altogether was not worth over three hundred pounds a year; and by devoting so much of his means to external embellishments, he was compelled to live in a dilapidated house, not fit, as he himself expresses it, to receive 'polite friends.' An unfortunate attachment to a young lady, and disappointed ambition-for he aimed at political as well as poetical celebrity-conspired, with his passion for gardening and improvement, to fix him permanently in his solitary situation. He became querulous and dejected, pined at the unequal gifts of fortune, and even contemplated, with a gloomy joy, the complaint of Swift, that he would be 'forced to die in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.' Yet Shenstone was essentially kind and benevolent, and he must at times have experienced exquisite pleasure in his romantic retreat, in which every year would give fresh beauty, and develope more distinctly the creations of his taste and labor.' 'The works of a person that builds,' he says, 'begin immediately to decay, while those of him who plants begin directly to improve." This advantage he possessed, with the additional charm of a love of literature; but he sighed for more than inward peace and satisfaction. He built his happiness on the applause of others, and died in solitude, a votary of the world. His death occurred at Leasowes, on the eleventh of February, 1763.

The works of Shenstone were collected and published after his death by Dodsley. They formed three volumes, the first of which contained his poems, the second, his prose essays, and the third his letters and other pieces. His letters are trifles, but his essays display much ease and grace of style, united to judgment and discrimination. They have not the mellow ripeness of thought and learning of Cowley's essays, but they resemble them more closely than any others in the language. In poetry, Shenstone tried various kinds. His elegies are indifferent; his Levities, or pieces of humor, are dull and spiritless: but his Pastoral Ballad, is the finest poem of that order in the English language. Dr. Johnson quotes the following verses of the first part, with the striking eulogium, that, if any mind denies its sympathy to them, it has no acquaintance with love and nature:

I prized every hour that went by,

Beyond all that had pleased me before;
But now they are past, and I sigh,

And I grieve that I prized them no more.
When forced the fair nymph to forego,
What anguish I felt in my heart!
Yet I thought (but it might not be so)
'Twas with pain she saw me depart.

She gazed as I slowly withdrew,

My path I could hardly discern;

So sweetly she bade me adieu,

I thought that she bade me return.