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FROM THE PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION.

Is aught so fair

In all the dewy landscapes of the spring,
In the bright eye of Hesper or the Morn,
In Nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair
As virtuous Friendship? as the candid blush

Of him who strives with fortune to be just?

The graceful tear that streams for others' woes?

Or the mild majesty of private life,

Where Peace with ever-blooming olive crowns
The gate; where Honour's liberal hands effuse
Unenvied treasures, and the snowy wings
Of Innocence and Love protect the scene?

.....ཟ་པས ས་༔ ༔0pct༦ k0lIl Ills oIitelpUOJu1eS, lı claims the same tribute from posterity. He was a true scholar, a gentleman, and a man of genius. His manners are described as cold, but his heart overflowed with the affections. Some of the irritation, under which he is said to have suffered occasionally, may probably be referred to the disagreeable associations which connected themselves with an accident of his youth, when one of his father's cleavers fell upon his foot, and slightly lamed him. His features were expressive and manly in a very high degree; his complexion was pale, his deportment solemn, and his dress remarkably precise.

The versification of Akenside yields to that of few poets; and few have excelled him in elevation of thought and general dignity of style. His "Pleasures of Imagination," however, was over-rated by his contemporaries. The Wartons were then too fresh in the newly-discovered beauties of Milton, to be able to discriminate Akenside with sufficient severity and exactness. For, as we may suppose that, to an audience newly-initiated into the material loveliness of the Greek mythology, an Italian madrigal, lavish in its commendation of the dwellers on Olympus, would possess many immediately startling charms-so, and within some such comparison, in relation to the high efforts of Milton, it is not to be denied, that the greater part of the "Pleasures of Imagination," as a purely poetical work, may be justly brought. Sufficient remains, however, with the help of his magnificent odes, to set an enduring

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In all the dewy landscapes of the spring,
In the bright eye of Hesper or the Morn,
In Nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair
As virtuous Friendship? as the candid blush
Of him who strives with fortune to be just?
The graceful tear that streams for others' woes?
Or the mild majesty of private life,
Where Peace with ever-blooming olive crowns
The gate; where Honour's liberal hands effuse
Unenvied treasures, and the snowy wings

Of Innocence and Love protect the scene?

Need I urge

Thy tardy thought through all the various round
Of this existence, that thy softening soul

At length may learn what energy the hand
Of Virtue mingles in the bitter tide

Of passion, swelling with distress and pain
To mitigate the sharp with gracious drops
Of cordial pleasure? Ask the faithful youth
Why the cold urn of her whom long he lov'd
So often fills his arms; so often draws
His lonely footsteps at the silent hour,
To pay the mournful tribute of his tears?
Oh he will tell thee, that the wealth of worlds
Should ne'er seduce his bosom to forego
That sacred hour, when, stealing from the noise
Of care and envy, sweet remembrance soothes
With Virtue's kindest looks his aching breast,
And turns his tears to rapture.-Ask the crowd
Which flies impatient from the village-walk
To climb the neighbouring cliffs, when far below
The cruel winds have hurl'd upon the coast
Some helpless bark; while sacred Pity melts
The general eye, or Terror's icy hand
Smites their distorted limbs and horrent hair;
While every mother closer to her breast
Catches her child, and pointing where the waves
Foam through the shatter'd vessel, shrieks aloud,
As one poor wretch that spreads his piteous arms
For succour, swallow'd by the roaring surge,
As now another, dash'd against the rock,
Drops lifeless down: O! deemest thou indeed
No kind endearment here by Nature given
To mutual terror and Compassion's tears?
No sweetly-melting softness which attracts,
O'er all that edge of pain, the social powers
To this their proper action and their end?
-Ask thy own heart; when at the midnight hour,
Slow through that studious gloom thy pausing eye,
Led by the glimmering taper, moves around
The sacred volumes of the dead, the songs
Of Grecian bards, and records writ by Fame
For Grecian heroes, where the present power
Of heaven and earth surveys the immortal page,

The praises of his son.

If then thy soul,

Spurning the yoke of these inglorious days,
Mix in their deeds and kindle with their flame;
Say, when the prospect blackens on thy view,
When rooted from the base, heroic states
Mourn in the dust, and tremble at the frown
Of curst Ambition: when the pious band
Of youths who fought for freedom and their sires,
Lie side by side in gore; when ruffian Pride
Usurps the throne of Justice, turns the pomp
Of public power, the majesty of rule,
The sword, the laurel, and the purple robe,
To slavish, empty pageants, to adorn
A tyrant's walk, and glitter in the eyes

Of such as bow the knee; when honour'd urns
Of patriots and of chiefs, the aweful bust
And storied arch, to glut the coward age
Of regal Envy, strew the public way
With hallow'd ruins; when the Muse's haunt,
The marble porch where wisdom wont to talk
With Socrates or Tully, hears no more,
Save the hoarse jargon of contentious monks,
Or female superstition's midnight prayer;
When ruthless Rapine from the hand of Time
Tears the destroying scythe, with surer blow
To sweep the works of glory from their base;
Till Desolation o'er the grass-grown street
Expands his raven wings, and up the wall,
Where senates once the price of monarchs doom'd,
Hisses the gliding snake through hoary weeds
That clasp the mouldering column; thus defac'd,
Thus widely mournful when the prospect thrills
Thy beating bosom, when the patriot's tear
Starts from thine eye, and thy extended arm
In fancy hurls the thunderbolt of Jove
To fire the impious wreath on Philip's brow,
Or dash Octavius from the trophied car;

Say, does thy secret soul repine to taste

The big distress? Or would'st thou then exchange
Those heart-ennobling sorrows for the lot
Of him who sits amid the gaudy herd
Of mute barbarians bending to his nod,
And bears aloft his gold-invested front,

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