Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit, 'I came because your horse would come; And, if I well forebode, My hat and wig will soon be here They are upon the road.' The calender, right glad to find His friend in merry pin, Returned him not a single word, But to the house went in. Whence straight he came with hat and wig; A hat not much the worse for wear, He held them up, and in his turn Thus shewed his ready wit: 'My head is twice as big as yours, They therefore needs must fit. 'But let me scrape the dirt away Said John: 'It is my wedding-day, So turning to his horse, he said: 'I am in haste to dine; 'Twas for your pleasure you came here, You shall go back for mine.' Ah, luckless speech, and bootless boast! Whereat his horse did snort, as he Away went Gilpin, and away Went Gilpin's hat and wig: He lost them sooner than at first; For why they were too big. Now Mrs Gilpin, when she saw Her husband posting down Into the country far away, She pulled out half-a-crown; And thus unto the youth she said, That drove them to the Bell: "This shall be yours when you bring back My husband safe and well.' The youth did ride, and soon did meet But not performing what he meant, Away went Gilpin, and away Went post-boy at his heels, The post-boy's horse right glad to miss The lumbering of the wheels. WILLIAM HAYLEY (1745-1820), the biographer of Cowper, wrote various poetical works which enjoyed great popularity in their day. His principal productions are the Triumphs of Temper (1781), a series of poetical epistles on history, addressed to Gibbon, and Essays on Painting, on Epic Poetry, &c. He produced several unsuccessful tragedies, a novel, and an Essay on Old Maids. A gentleman by education and fortune, and fond of literary communication, Hayley enjoyed the acquaintance of most of the eminent men of his times. His overstrained sensibility and romantic tastes exposed him to ridicule, yet he was an amiable and accomplished man. It was through his personal application to Pitt that Cowper received his pension. He had-what appears to have been to him a sort of melancholy pride and satisfactionthe task of writing epitaphs for most of his friends, including Mrs Unwin and Cowper. His life of Cowper appeared in 1803, and three years afterwards it was enlarged by a supplement. Hayley prepared memoirs of his own life, which he disposed of to a publisher on condition of his receiving an annuity for the remainder of his life. This annuity he enjoyed for twelve years. The memoirs appeared in two fine quarto volumes, but they failed to attract attention. Hayley had outlived his popularity, and his smooth but often unmeaning lines had vanished like chaff before the vigorous and natural outpourings of the modern muse. specimen of this once much-praised poet, we subjoin some lines on the death of his mother, which had the merit of delighting Gibbon, and with which Mr Southey has remarked Cowper would sympathise deeply: [Tribute to a Mother, on her Death.] As a For me who feel, whene'er I touch the lyre, Let the blest art my grateful thoughts employ, And magnify with irritation's zeal, If heartfelt pain e'er led me to accuse 'Twas thine, with constant love, through lingering years, Thy fond maternal heart adhered to hope and prayer: O might he thence receive the happy skill, Nature, who decked thy form with beauty's flowers, Inscription on the Tomb of Cowper. Ye who with warmth the public triumph feel Ranks with her dearest sons his favourite name. Cambridge, he applied himself to the study of physic, and took his degree of bachelor in medicine at Edinburgh in 1755. He then commenced practice in Nottingham, but meeting with little encouragement, he removed to Lichfield, where he long continued a successful and distinguished physician. In 1757 Dr Darwin married an accomplished lady of Lichfield, Miss Mary Howard, by whom he had five children, two of whom died in infancy. The lady herself died in 1770; and after her decease, Darwin seems to have commenced his botanical and literary pursuits. He was at first afraid that the reputation of a poet would injure him in his profession, but being firmly established in the latter capacity, he at length ventured on publication. At this time he lived in a picturesque villa in the neighbourhood of Lichfield, furnished with a grotto and fountain, and here he began the formation of a botanic garden. The spot he has described as 'adapted to love-scenes, and as being thence a proper residence for the modern goddess of botany." In 1781 appeared the first part of Darwin's Botanic Garden, a poem in glittering and polished heroic verse, designed to describe, adorn, and allegorise the Linnæan system of botany. The Rosicrucian doctrine of gnomes, sylphs, nymphs, and salamanders, was adopted by the poet, as affording a In proper machinery for a botanic poem, as it is prob- From giant oaks, that wave their branches dark, How snow-drops cold, and blue-eyed harebells blend This is exquisitely melodious verse, and ingenious subtle fancy. A few passages have moral sentiment and human interest united to the same powers of vivid painting and expression: Roll on, ye stars! exult in youthful prime, Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time; Near and more near your beamy cars approach, And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach; Flowers of the sky! ye too to age must yield, Frail as your silken sisters of the field! Star after star from heaven's high arch shall rush, Suns sink on suns, and systems, systems crush, Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall, And death, and night, and chaos mingle all! Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, Immortal nature lifts her changeful form, Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame, And soars and shines, another and the same ! In another part of the poem, after describing the cassia plant, cinctured with gold,' and borne on by the current to the coasts of Norway, with all its * Linnæus, the celebrated Swedish naturalist, has demonstrated that all flowers contain families of males or females, or both; and on their marriage, has constructed his invaluable system of botany.-Darwin, 'infant loves,' or seeds, the poet, in his usual strain of forced similitude, digresses in the following happy and vigorous lines, to Moses concealed on the Nile, and the slavery of the Africans: So the sad mother at the noon of night, And broke, cursed slavery! thy iron bands. Which shook the waves and rent the sky? The material images of Darwin are often less happy than the above, being both extravagant and gross, and grouped together without any visible connection or dependence one on the other. He has such a throng of startling metaphors and descriptions, the latter drawn out to an excessive length and tiresome minuteness, that nothing is left to the reader's imagination, and the whole passes like a glittering pageant before the eye, exciting wonder, but without touching the heart or feelings. As the poet was then past fifty, the exuberance of his fancy, and his peculiar choice of subjects, are the more remarkable. A third part of the Botanic Garden was added in 1792. Darwin next published his Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life, part of which he had written many years previously. This is a curious and original physiological treatise, evincing an inquiring and attentive study of natural phenomena. Dr Thomas Brown, Professor Dugald Stewart, Paley, and others, have, however, successfully combated the positions of Darwin, particularly his theory which refers instinct to sensation. In 1801 our author came forward with another philosophical disquisition, entitled Phytologia, or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening. He also wrote a short treatise on Female Education, intended for the instruction and assistance of part of his own family. This was Darwin's last publication. He had always been a remarkably temperate man. Indeed, he totally abstained from all fermented and spirituous liquors, and in his Botanic Garden he compares He their effects to that of the Promethean fire. was, however, subject to inflammation as well as gout, and a sudden attack carried him off in his seventy-first year, on the 18th of April 1802. Shortly after his death, was published a poem, the Temple of Nature, which he had ready for the press, the preface to the work being dated only three months before his death. The Temple of Nature aimed, like the Botanic Garden, to amuse by bringing distinctly to the imagination the beautiful and sublime images of the operations of nature. It is more metaphysical than its predecessor, and more inverted in style and diction. The poetical reputation of Darwin was as bright and transient as the plants and flowers which formed the subject of his verse. Cowper praised his song for its rich embellishments, and said it was as 'strong' as it was 'learned and sweet.' 'There is a fashion in poetry,' observes Sir Walter Scott,' which, without increasing or diminishing the real value of the materials moulded upon it, does wonders in facilitating its currency while it has novelty, and is often found to impede its reception when the mode has passed away.' This has been the fate of Darwin. Besides his coterie at Lichfield, the poet of Flora had considerable influence on the poetical taste of his own day. He may be traced in the Pleasures of Hope of Campbell, and in other young poets of that time. The attempt to unite science with the inspirations of the Muse, was in itself an attractive novelty, and he supported it with various and high powers. His command of fancy, of poetical language, dazzling metaphors, and sonorous versification, was well seconded by his curious and multifarious knowledge. The effect of the whole, however, was artificial, and destitute of any strong or continuous interest. The Rosicrucian machinery of Pope was united to the delineation of human passions and pursuits, and became the auxiliary of wit and satire; but who can sympathise with the loves and metamorphoses of the plants? Darwin had no sentiment or pathos except in very brief episodical passages, and even his eloquent and splendid versification, for want of variety of cadence, becomes monotonous and fatiguing. There is no repose, no cessation from the glare of his bold images, his compound epithets, and high-toned melody. He had attained to rare perfection in the mechanism of poetry, but wanted those impulses of soul and sense, and that guiding taste which were required to give it vitality, and direct it to its true objects. [Invocation to the Goddess of Botany.] [From The Botanic Garden.] 'Stay your rude steps! whose throbbing breasts infold 'But thou whose mind the well-attempered ray My plumy pairs in gay embroidery dressed, 'And if with thee some hapless maid should stray, Disastrous love companion of her way, Oh, lead her timid steps to yonder glade, 'Winds of the north! restrain your icy gales, O'er the still dawn thy placid smile effuse, She comes! the goddess! through the whispering air, [Destruction of Sennacherib's Army by a Pestilential Wind.] [From the Economy of Vegetation.] Loud shrieks of matrons thrilled the troubled air, |