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The worm's inferior, and in rank beneath
The dust I tread on, high to bear my brow,
To drink the spirit of the golden day,

And triumph in existence; and could know
No motive, but my bliss; and hast ordain'd
A rise in blessing, with the patriarch's joy,
Thy call I follow to the land unknown.

I trust in thee and know in whom I trust;
Or life, or death, is equal; neither weighs:
All weight in this—O let me live to thee!

THE STREAM OF LIFE
[From Night V.]

Is it, that life has sown her joys so thick
We can't thrust in a single care between?
Is it, that life has such a swarm of cares
The thought of death can't enter for the throng?
Is it, that time steals on with downy feet,
Nor wakes indulgence from her golden dream?
To day is so like yesterday, it cheats;
We take the lying sister for the same.

Life glides away, Lorenzo, like a brook;
For ever changing, unperceived the change.

In the same brook none ever bathed him twice,
To the same life none ever twice awoke.

We call the brook the same; the same we think
Our life, though still more rapid in its flow;
Nor mark the much, irrevocably laps'd
And mingled with the sea. Or shall we say
(Retaining still the brook to bear us on)
That life is like a vessel on the stream?
In life embark'd we smoothly down the tide
Of time descend, but not on time intent,
Amused, unconscious of the gliding wave;
Till on a sudden we perceive a shock;
We start, awake, look out; what see we there?
Our brittle bark is burst on Charon's shore.

JOHN BYROM.

[JOHN BYROM, born in 1691 at Kearsale, near Manchester, was educated partly at Merchant Taylors' and partly at Trinity College, Cambridge. For some time he read medicine. Afterwards he practised and taught stenography. Then the paternal estate fell in to him, and he removed from London to Manchester, where he lived in great repute for many years, and died in 1763. His poems were published at Manchester in two volumes.]

Byrom's is a figure rather curious than notable, rather amiable than striking. He had many turns and accomplishments, and many holds upon life. He loved learning, for instance, and had scholarship enough to write with point upon scholarly subjects. Again, it is certain that he was a man who could love; for he gave over medicine and the chance of medical honours merely to follow up and win the lady he was wooing to wife. Then, as became Weston's successful rival, the teacher who had improved upon Weston's own system, and had Hoadley and Chesterfield for his pupils, he was keenly interested in stenography, and not only lectured on it to his classes (his lectures, by the way, are said to have been full of matter and of wit), but read papers about it before the Royal Society. Also, he was curiously versed in theology and philosophical divinity; he held advanced opinions on the dogmas of predestination and imputed righteousness; he is known for a disciple of William Law, a student of Malebranche and Madarne Bourignon, a follower of Jacob Boehmen, for whose sake he learned German, and some of whose discourse he was at the pains of running into English verse. And above all was he addicted to letters and the practice of what he was pleased to think poetry. Add to this, that he was a good and cheerful talker, whose piety was not always fun-proof ( Hic jacet Doctor Byfield,

volatilis olim, tandem fixus '), but who was capable on occasion of right and genuine epigram, and the picture is complete. As revealed in it, Byrom is the very type and incarnation of the ingenious amateur.

than prose.

Verse was his organ; he wrote it more easily and delightedly From his schooldays onwards, when, as he declares, a line of metre was more to him than a dozen themes, down to the last hours of his life,

'Him, numbers flowing in a measured time

Him, sweetest grace of English verse, the rhyme,
Choice epithet and smooth descriptive line,
Conspiring all to finish one design,

Smit with delight '—

and as that delight usually took on palpable shape, it appears to us expressed in more epistles, songs, pastorals, hymns, essays, satires and epigrams, than nowadays one cares to consider. Nothing came amiss to Byrom in the way of subject. He was interested in everything, and said his say about everything; and that say was always in metre. It was alike in metre that he sang the praises of Joanna Bentley, the Phoebe of his first pastoral, and did battle with Comberbatch in the good cause of Rhyme against Blank Verse; alike in metre that he recorded the gaieties of Tunbridge and the dangers of the Epping stage, the grisly glories of the heroic Figg-' so fierce and sedate '-and the solemn charm of Eastertide and the Nativity. It was in metre that he confuted Middleton, differed from Hervey, emended Horace and Homer discoursed on the nature of Pentecost, expounded William Law, and explained the Mystical Cobbler. It was in metre that he anatomised beaux and astrologers, made fables and apologies and epigrams, criticised verses and theologies, spoke breaking-up addresses, painted the free and happy workman, and set forth the kindred mysteries of poesy and shorthand. He prattled incessantly, and always in numbers. Not otherwise than in a copy of verses could he define the nature and characteristics of enthusiasm ; not otherwise could he submit to the Royal Society his theory that George the Cappadocian had somehow been foisted into the place of Gregory the Roman as England's patron saint. To respect him it is really necessary to remember that he wrote chiefly for his own amusement and his friends', and pub lished but a little of the much that he produced.

It is evident that he had read Prior, though not to the best advantage; it is evident, too, that he had read not only Pope, but the metaphysical poets as well; and the poem of Careless Content, here given, is so good an imitation that it has been supposed to be a genuine Elizabethan production. His chief quality is one of ease and fluency; in combination with a certain cheerful briskness of thought and the amiable good sense that is the most striking element in his intellectual composition, it is to be found here and there in all he did. Unhappily for him and for us, it appears to have been as hard for him to correct as it was easy to write. Too often do his verses sound emptily to modern

ear

The art of English poetry, I find,

At present, Jenkins, occupies your mind'

too often do they set modern fingers itching to shape and improve them. It follows that he is seen to most advantage when, upon compulsion of his stanza, he is at his briefest and most careful. It is not without reason, therefore, that he is generally known but as the author of the sly and amiable quatrian of benediction alike on King and Pretender. That is the man's highest point as an artist; it is at once his happiest and most complete utterance ; and the body of his verse will be searched in vain for such another proof of merit and accomplishment.

W. E. HENLEY.

THE NIMMERS.

Two foot-companions once in deep discourse-
'Tom,' says the one, 'Let's go and steal a horse.'
'Steal!' says the other in a huge surprise,

'He that says I'm a thief, I say he lies.'
'Well, well,' replies his friend, No such affront!
I did but ask ye. If you won't, you won't.'
So they jogged on, till in another strain
The querist moved to honest Tom again:
'Suppose,' says he, 'for supposition's sake
('Tis but a supposition that I make!)

Suppose that we should filch a horse, I say?'
'Filch? filch?' quoth Tom, demurring by the way,
'That's not so bad as downright theft, I own,
But yet-methinks,-'twere better let alone.
It soundeth something pitiful and low.

Shall we go filch a horse, you say? Why, no!
I'll filch no filching ;—and I'll tell no lie:
Honesty's the best policy, say I!'

Struck with such vast integrity quite dumb,

His comrade paused. At last, says he, 'Come, come,

Thou art an honest fellow, I agree.

Honest and poor.-Alas, that should not be!

And dry into the bargain! And no drink!

Shall we go nim a horse, Tom? What dost_think?'

How clear are things when liquor's in the case!
Tom answers quick, with casuistic grace,
'Nim? yes, yes, yes! Let's nim, with all my heart.
I see no harm in nimming, for my part.
Hard is the case, now I look sharp into 't,
That honesty should trudge i' th' dirt afoot!

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