Nymphs of Pæon" is an allowable liberty? The allusion is to their healthy and bracing qualities. The last line of the seventh stanza contains an apparent pleonasm, to say no worse of it, and yet it was not written as such. The idea was from the shriek of Death (personified) and the scream of the dying man. * ELEGY Occasioned by the Death of Mr. Gill, who was drowned in the River Trent, while bathing, 9th August, 1802. 1. HE sunk th' impetuous river roll'd along, The sullen wave betray'd his dying breath ;* And rising sad the rustling sedge among, The gale of evening touch'd the cords of death. * 2. Nymph of the Trent! why didst not thou To snatch the victim from thy felon wave ! appear Alas! too late thou cam❜st to embalm his bier, *This line may appear somewhat obscure. It alludes to the last bubbling of the water, after a person has sunk, caused by the final expiration of the air from the lungs : inhalation, by introducing the water, produces suffocation. 3. 'Triumphant, riding o'er its tumid prey, Rolls the red stream in sanguinary pride; While anxious crowds, in vain, expectant stay, And ask the swoln corse from the murdering tide. 4. The stealing tear-drop stagnates in the eye, The sudden sigh by friendship's bosom prov'd, I mark them rise - I mark the genʼral sigh: Unhappy youth! and wert thou so belov❜d? 5. On thee, as lone I trace the Trent's green brink, When the dim twilight slumbers on the glade; On thee my thoughts shall dwell, nor Fancy shrink To hold mysterious converse with thy shade. 6. Of thee, as early I, with vagrant feet, Hail the grey-sandal'd morn in Colwick's vale, 7. And oh! ye nymphs of Pæon! who preside Guard ye in future well the halcyon tide From the rude Death-shriek and the dying scream. TO MR. M. HARRIS. Nottingham, 28th March, 1802. DEAR SIR, I WAS greatly surprised at your letter of the twentyseventh, for I had in reality given you up for lost. I should long since have written to you, in answer to your note about the Lexicon, but was perfectly ignorant of the place of your abode. For any thing I knew to the contrary, you might have been quaffing the juice of the cocoa-nut under the broad bananes of the Indies, breathing the invigorating air of liberty in the broad savannahs of America, or sweltering beneath the line. I had, however, even then, some sort of a presentiment that you were not quite so far removed from our foggy atmosphere, but not enough to prevent me from being astonished at finding you so near us as Leicester. You tell me I must not ask you what you are doing; I am, nevertheless, very anxious to know; not so much, I flatter myself, from any inquisitiveness of spirit, as from a desire to hear of your welfare. Why, my friend, did you leave us? possessing, as you did, if not exactly the otium cum dignitate, something very like it; having every comfort and enjoyment at your call, which the philosophical mind can find pleasure in; and, above all, blessed with that easy competence, that sweet independence, which renders the fatigues of employment supportable, and even agreeable. Quod satis est, cui contingit, nihil ampliùs optet. Certainly, to a man of your disposition, no situation could have more charms than yours at the Trent-Bridge. I regard those hours which I spent with you there, while the moon-beam was trembling on the waters, and the harp of Eolus was giving us its divine swells and dying falls, as the most sweetly tranquil of my life. I have applied myself rather more to Latin than to Greek since you left us. I make use of Schrevelius's Lexicon, but shall be obliged to you to buy me the Parkhurst, at any decent price, if possible. Can you tell me any mode of joining the letters in writing in the Greek character; I find it difficult enough. The following is my manner; is it right?* I can hardly flatter myself that you will give yourself the trouble of corresponding with me, as all the advantage would be on my side, without any thing to compensate for it on yours; but-but in fact I do not know what to say further, -only, that whenever you shall think me worthy of a letter, I shall be highly gratified. * The few Greek words which followed were beautifully written. TO HIS BROTHER NEVILLE. DEAR NEVILLE, Nottingham, 10th February, 1803. Now with regard to the subscription, I shall certainly agree to this mode of publication, and I am very much obliged to you for what you say regarding it. But we must wait (except among your private friends) until we get Lady Derby's answer, and Proposals are printed. I think we shall readily raise 350, though Nottingham is the worst place imaginable for any thing of that kind. Even envy will interfere. will interfere. I shall send proposals to Chesterfield to my uncle; to Sheffield, to Miss Gales's, (booksellers,) whom I saw at Chesterfield, and who have lately sent me a pressing invitation to S―, accompanied with á desire of Montgomery (the Poet Paul Positive) to see me; to Newark-Allen and Wright, my friends there, (the latter a bookseller;) and I think if they were stitched up with all the Monthly Mirrors, it would promote the subscription. You are not to take any money; that would be absolute begging: the subscribers put down their names, and pay the bookseller of whom they get the copy. |