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Sweet soother of my mis'ry, say,
Why dost thou clap thy joyous wing?
Why dost thou pour that artless lay?
How canst thou, little prisoner, sing?
Hast thou not cause to grieve
That man, unpitying man! has rent

From thee the boon which Nature meant
Thou should'st, as well as he, receive-
The pow'r to woo thy partner in the grove,
To build where instinct points, where chance directs
to rove?

Perchance, unconscious of thy fate,
And to the woes of bondage blind,
Thou never long'st to join thy mate,
Nor wishest to be unconfin'd;

Then how relentless he,

And fit for every foul offence,

Who could bereave such innocence

Of life's best blessing, Liberty!

Who lur'd thee, guileful, to his treacherous snare, To live a tuneful slave, and dissipate his care!

But why for thee this fond complaint?
Above thy master thou art blest:

Art thou not free?-Yes: calm Content
With olive sceptre sways thy breast:
Then deign with me to live;
The falcon with insatiate maw,

With hooked bill and griping claw,

Shall ne'er thy destiny contrive;

And every tabby foe shall mew in vain,

While pensively demure she hears thy melting strain.

Nor shall the fiend, fell Famine, dare

Thy wiry tenement assail;

These, these shall be my constant care,
The limpid fount, and temperate meal;
And when the blooming Spring
In chequer'd liv'ry robes the fields,
The fairest flow'rets Nature yields
To thee officious will I bring;

A garland rich thy dwelling shall entwine,
And Flora's freshest gifts, thrice happy bird, be

thine!

From drear Oblivion's gloomy cave

The powerful Muse shall wrest thy name, And bid thee live beyond the grave

This meed she knows thy merits claim;

She knows thy liberal heart

Is ever ready to dispense
The tide of bland benevolence,

And melody's soft aid impart;

Is ready still to prompt the magic lay, Which hushes all our griefs, and charms our pains

away.

Erewhile when, brooding o'er my soul,

Frown'd the black demons of despair,

Did not thy voice that pow'r control,
And oft suppress the rising tear?
If Fortune should be kind,
If e'er with affluence I'm blest,
I'll often seek some friend distrest,

And when the weeping wretch I find,
Then, tuneful moralist, I'll copy thee,
And solace all his woes with social sympathy.

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JOHN LANGHORNE.

BORN 1735.-DIED 1779.

JOHN LANGHORNE was the son of a beneficed clergyman in Lincolnshire. He was born at Kirkby Steven, in Westmoreland. His father dying when he was only four years old, the charge of giving him his earliest instruction devolved upon his mother, and she fulfilled the task with so much tenderness and care, as to leave an indelible impression of gratitude upon his memory. He recorded the virtues of this parent on her tomb, as well as in an affectionate monody. Having finished his classical education at the school of Appleby, in his eighteenth year, he engaged himself as private tutor in a family near Rippon. His next employment was that of assistant to the free school of Wakefield. While in that situation he took deacon's orders; and, though he was still very young, gave indications of popular attrac

tion as a preacher. He soon afterwards went as preceptor into the family of Mr. Cracroft, of Hackthorn, where he remained for a couple of years, and during that time entered his name at Clare-hall, Cambridge, though he never resided at his college, and consequently never obtained any degree. He had at Hackthorn a numerous charge of pupils, and as he has not been accused of neglecting them, his time must have been pretty well occupied in tuition ; but he found leisure enough to write and publish a great many pieces of verse, and to devote so much of his attention to a fair daughter of the family, Miss Anne Cracroft, as to obtain the young lady's partiality, and ultimately her hand. He had given her some instructions in the Italian, and probably trusting that she was sufficiently a convert to the sentiment of that language, which pronounces that "all time "is lost which is not spent in love," he proposed immediate marriage to her. She had the prudence, however, though secretly attached to him, to give him a firm refusal for the present; and our poet, struck with despondency at the disappointment, felt it necessary to quit the scene, and accepted of a curacy in the parish of Dagenham. The cares of love, it appeared, had no bad effect on his diligence as an author. He allayed his despair by an apposite ode to Hope; and continued to pour out numerous productions in verse and prose, with that florid facility which always distinguished his pen. Among these, his "Letters of Theodosius and Constantia❞ made him, perhaps, best known as a prose writer.

His "Letters on Religious Retirement" were dedicated to Bishop Warburton, who returned him a most encouraging letter on his just sentiments in matters of religion; and, what was coming nearer to the author's purpose, took an interest in his worldly concerns. He was much less fortunate in addressing a poem, entitled "The Viceroy," to the Earl of Halifax, who was then lord-lieutenant of Ireland. This heartless piece of adulation was written with the view of obtaining his lordship's patronage; but the viceroy was either too busy, or too insensible to praise, to take any notice of Langhorne. In his poetry of this period, we find his "Visions of Faney;" his first part of the "Enlargement of the Mind;" and his pastoral " Valour and Genius," written in answer to Churchill's "Prophecy of Famine." In consequence of the gratitude of the Scotch for this last poem, he was presented with the diploma of doctor in divinity by the university of Edinburgh. His profession and religious writings gave an appearance of propriety to this compliment, which otherwise would not have been discoverable, from any striking connexion of ideas, between a doctorship of divinity and an eclogue on Valour and Genius.

He came to reside permanently in London in 1764, having obtained the curacy and lectureship of St. John's, Clerkenwell. Being soon afterwards called to be assistant preacher at Lincoln's-inn Chapel, he had there to preach before an audience, which comprehended a much greater number of learned and

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