THE EMPTINESS OF RICHES. Can gold calm passion, or make reason shine? It strikes our sense, and gives a constant feast; To see their treasure, hear their glory told, And aid the wretched impotence of gold. But some, great souls! and touched with warmth divine Give gold a price, and teach its beams to shine; All hoaded treasures they repute a load, Nor think their wealth their own till well bestowed. Grand reservoirs of public happiness, Through secret streams diffusively they bless, And, while their bounties glide, concealed from view, WILLIAM OLDYS and RICHARD SAVAGE were poets of a very different character from the two eminent divines whom we have just noticed. Oldys was the natural son of the chancellor of Lyncoln, and was born in 1696. Few particulars of his life have been preserved, though from what little we know it is but too apparent that he was intemperate, profligate, and licentious. He was, for some years, librarian to Lord Oxford, and made a catalogue of that celebrated collection of works for which a bookseller paid thirteen thousand pounds. His familiarity with heraldry also procured for him the office of Norroy King-at-Arms. His death occurred on the fifteenth of April, 1761. Oldys, literary labors were extensive. His most important works are a Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, the Introduction to Hayward's British Muse, and Poetical Characteristics; besides which the various interesting particu lars of literary history that his industry had amassed, enabled him to assist every author or bookseller who required a leaf from his voluminous collections. The following exquisite little Anacreontic was occasioned by a fly drinking out of his Cup of Ale: AN EXTEMPORE SONG. Busy, curious, thirsty fly, Threescore summers, when they're gone, Will appear as short as one. RICHARD SAVAGE, better known for his misfortunes than for any peculiar merit in his poetry, was the natural son of the Countess of Macclesfield, by Lord Rivers, and was born in London, in 1698. His mother openly avowed her profligacy, in order to obtain a divorce from her husband, with whom she lived unhappily; and the illegitimate child was born after their separation. He was early consigned to the charge of a poor woman, and brought up as her son; but, by his maternal grandmother, Lady Mason, was sent to St. Alban's grammar-school, and, through her care and generosity, received a good education. Whilst he was at school Lord Rivers died; and during his last illness the countess had the inhumanity to declare to him that Savage was dead, by which falsehood he was deprived of a legacy of six thousand pounds intended for him by his father. Savage was now withdrawn from school, and placed apprentice to a shoemaker; but an accident soon revealed to him his birth and the cause of its concealment. His nurse and supposed mother died, and among her effects he found some letters which disclosed the circumstances of his paternity. The discovery must have seemed like the opening of a new world to his hopes and ambition. He was already distinguished for quickness and proficiency, and for a sanguine enthusiastic temperament. A bright prospect now dawned upon him; he was allied to rank and opulence, and though his birth was accompanied by humiliating circumstances, it is not probable that he felt these deeply, in the immediate prospect of emancipation from the low station and ignoble employment to which he had been so harshly condemned. Savage, it is also well known, was agitated by those tender feelings which link the child to the parent, and which must have burst upon him with peculiar force after so unexpected and wonderful a discovery. His mother, however, was an exception to ordinary humanity-an anomaly in the history of the female heart. She had determined to disown him, and, therefore, repulsed every effort at acknowledgment and reconciliation. Cast thus early upon the world, and under circumstances so peculiar, Savage's remarkable history soon became known, and friends at once appeared to shield the hapless youth from poverty. But unfortunately, the vices and frailties of his own character soon began to display themselves. Though not destitute of a love of virtue and the principles of piety, still his habits were low and sensual. His temper was irritable and capricious; and whatever money he received was immediately spent in the obscure haunts of dissipation. In a tavern brawl he had the misfortune to kill James Sinclair, one of his companions in debauchery, for which he was tried and condemned to death. His relentless mother, on this trying occasion, endeavored to intercept the royal mercy; but his peculiar and extraordinary sufferings were made known by the Countess of Hereford to the Queen, who immediately granted him an unconditional pardon. Savage had already published, as a means of support, several poetical pieces; and he now ventured to address a birthday ode to the Queen, calling himself the Volunteer Laureate.' With this compliment the Queen was so well pleased that she sent him a present of fifty pounds, and continued to bestow upon him the same sum, annually, till her death. His exposed situation finally excited the compassion of Lord Tyrconnel, a friend of his mother, who took him into his family, placed him on terms of equality with its other members, and allowed him two hundred pounds a year. This, as Dr. Johnson remarks, was the 'golden period' of Savage's life; but, as might have been foreseen, the habits of the poet differed widely from those of the peer: they soon quarrelled, and the former was again set adrift on the world. The death of the queen also stopped his pension; but his friends made up an annuity for him of equal amount, to which Pope generously contributed twenty pounds. Savage agreed to withdraw to the country to avoid the temptations of London. He selected Swansea, in Wales, as the place of his retirement; but on his way thither he stopped at Bristol, where he was treated with the greatest hospitality by the opulent merchants and other inhabitants of the city, whose kindness he afterwards repaid by a scurrilous satire. After having remained at Swansea about a year, he returned to Bristol, was arrested for a small debt, cast into prison, and soon after died of a fever, on the first of August, 1743. During his imprisonment and illness Savage was treated with the greatest kindness by his gaoler, who buried him at his own expense in St. Peter's churchyard. Savage numbered amongst his personal friends, Pope, Young, and Thomson; and he must, therefore, notwithstanding his low propensities and vicious habits, have had some prominent redeeming qualities. He was the author of two plays, and a volume of miscellaneous poems. The tragedy founded on the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury was so successful that he realized from its representation over two hundred pounds. The Wanderer, one of his miscellaneous poems, was written with greater care than most of his other productions, as it was the offspring of that happy period of his life when he lived with Lord Tyrconnel. The versification is easy and correct, and the work contains many impressive passages. The Bastard is, however, his best performance, and bears the impress of true and energetic feeling. The concluding passage, in which the author mourns over the fatal act by which he deprived a fellow-creature of life, and over his own distressing condition, possesses a genuine and manly pathos : Is chance a guilt, that my disastrous heart, For mischief never meant, must ever smart? What though no purposed malice stained thee o'er? Thou hadst not been provoked-or thou hadst died. He might perhaps his country's friend have proved; He might have saved some worth, now doomed to fall, O fate of late repentance! always vain: Thy remedies but lull undying pain. Where shall my hope find rest? No mother's care Lost to the life you gave, your son no more, Of the four poets to whom our attention is next to be directed, Blair, Dyer, Mallet, and Thomson, three were Scots, and the other a native of Wales. ROBERT BLAIR was the son of a clergyman of Edinburgh, and was born in that city, in 1699, His education was conducted in the university of his native place; and in 1731, he was appointed minister of Athelstainford, a parish in East Lothian, where he spent his life devoted to the sacred duties of his ministry, to literature, and to offices of friendship. Besides the emoluments of his parish, he possessed some private fortune, and was therefore enabled to live in a superior style, and cultivate the acquaintance of the neighboring gentry. As a gentleman of pleasing and elegant manners, a poet, and a botanist, as well as a man of scientific and general knowledge, his society was much courted, and he enjoyed the friendship and correspondence of the excellent Dr. Watts. His death occurred on the fourth of February, 1746, at the comparatively early age of forty-seven. The Grave, Blair's only poetic performance of importance, was written previous to his ordination, but was not published until 1743. It is a complete and powerful poem, of limited design, but of masterly execution. The subject precluded much originality of conception, but, at the same time, is recommended by its awful importance, and its universal application. The style is formed upon that of the old sacred and puritanical poets, elevated by the author's evident admiration for Milton. The following passage, towards the close of the poem, possesses a dignity, a pathos, and a devotional rapture, approaching the higher flights of Young: That, after many a painful bleeding step, |