Still, I'm the nurse of young desire, The fairy promiser of bliss:
I am the good that all require
In passing through a world like this.
Say, rather, thou'rt the glow-worm light, That mocks us with a faint display Of idle beams, that please the sight, But never serve to show the way.
Alas! but this will never end, 'Tis like a grave old aunt's relation; I would that reason might attend, And terminate our disputation.
Obedient to your wish am I,
And thus my sentiments disclose; Together you must live and die, Together must be friends or foes.
For what is Hope, if Memory gives No aid, nor points her course aright? She then a useless trifler lives,
And spends her strength in idle flight.
And what from Memory's stores can rise That will for care and study pay? Unless upon that store relies
The Hope that heavenward wings her way.
Be friends, and both to man be true; O'er all their better views preside;
For Memory greatest good will do
As Hope's director, strength, and guide.
So shall ye both to mortals bring An equal good in Reason's scale; And Hope her sweetest song shall sing, When Memory tells her noblest tale.
'Twas in heaven pronounced, and 'twas muttered in hell And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell : On the confines of earth 'twas permitted to rest, And the depths of the ocean its presence confest ; 'Twill be found in the sphere when 'tis riven asunder, Be seen in the lightning, and heard in the thunder. 'Twas allotted to man with his earliest breath, Attends at his birth, and awaits him in death, Presides o'er his happiness, honour, and health, Is the prop of his house, and the end of his wealth. In the heaps of the miser 'tis hoarded with care, But is sure to be lost on his prodigal heir.
It begins every hope, every wish it must bound,
With the husbandman toils, and with monarchs is crown'd. Without it the soldier, the seaman may roam,
But wo to the wretch who expels it from home!
In the whispers of conscience its voice will be found, Nor e'en in the whirlwind of passion be drown'd.
"Twill not soften the heart; but though deaf be the ear, It will make it acutely and instantly hear.
Yet in shade let it rest like a delicate flower, Ah breathe on it softly-it dies in an hour.
A Newdigate Prize Poem, recited at the Theatre, Oxford, June 1823. By T. S. SALMON.
WRAPT in the veil of time's unbroken gloom, Obscure as death, and silent as the tomb, Where cold oblivion holds her dusky reign, Frowns the dark pile on Sarum's lonely plain.
Yet think not here with classic eye to trace Corinthian beauty, or Ionian grace;
No pillar'd lines with sculptured foliage crown'd, No fluted remnants deck the hallow'd ground; Firm, as implanted by some Titan's might, Each rugged stone uprears its giant height,
Whence the poised fragment tottering seems to throw A trembling shadow on the plain below.
Here oft, when evening sheds her twilight ray, And gilds with fainter beam departing day, With breathless gaze, and cheek with terror pale,. The lingering shepherd startles at the tale,
How at deep midnight, by the moon's chill glance, Unearthly forms prolong the viewless dance; While on each whisp'ring breeze that murmurs by, His busied fancy hears the hollow sigh.
Rise from thy haunt, dread genius of the clime, Rise, magic spirit of forgotten time! "Tis thine to burst the mantling clouds of age, And fling new radiance on Tradition's page: See at thy call, from Fable's varied store, In shadowy train the mingled visions pour: Here the wild Briton, 'mid his wilder reign, Spurns the proud yoke, and scorns th' oppressor's chain; Here wizard Merlin, where the mighty fell,* Waves the dark wand, and chants the thrilling spell. Hark! 'tis the bardic lyre, whose harrowing strain Wakes the rude echoes of the slumbering plain; Lo! 'tis the Druid pomp, whose lengthening line In lowliest homage bend before the shrine. He comes-the priest-amid the sullen blaze His snow-white robe in spectral lustre plays; Dim gleam the torches thro' the circling night, Dark curl the vapours round the altar's light; O'er the black scene of death, each conscious star. In lurid glory, rolls its silent car.
'Tis gone! e'en now the mystic horrors fade From Sarum's loneliness, and Mona's glade ; Hush'd is each note of Taliesin'st lyre, Sheath'd the fell blade, and quench'd the fatal fire. On wings of light Hope's angel form appears, Smiles on the past, and points to happier years: Points, with uplifted hand, and raptur'd eye,
Το yon pure dawn that floods the opening sky; And views, at length, the sun of Judah pour One cloudless noon o'er Albion's rescued shore.
On this spot it is said that the British nobles were slaughtered by Hengist. + Taliesin, president of the bards, flourished in the sixth century.
[N. B. The figures within crotchets refer to the History; those with a⚫ to the Appendix to Chronicle, &c.; and the others to the Chronicle.]
ABBERVILLERS, ghost at, 104 Accident at the theatre, Newcastle, 20 Acetate of Morphine, 17* A'Court, sir W., his correspondence with Mr. Canning, relative to the affairs of France and Spain, 116,*
Acts, public general, list of, 235 Admiralty sessions, 53
Advertisement, singular Chinese one, 154
African institution, 17th report of, 80,
circulation of works by, on the con- tinent, 93: see also Slave trade Agricultural distress: discussion on, in parliament, [95]; meeting at Nor- wich respecting, 5; at Hereford, 8; Somersetshire, ib.
Agriculture, report on the state of, in New South Wales, 71*
Ale and porter, quantity of, brewed in London, 86
Alert (packet), loss of the, 39 Ambassador, action to try whether the property of persons attached to one, be subject to legal process, 53 America, appointment of British con- suls in South America, [144]; capt. Franklin's journey to the Polar Sea, 251*; affairs of South America ;- see Brazil, Buenos Ayres, Chili, Co- lumbia, Mexico, Peru; of North America,-see Canada, and United States
American duelling, 68
Angerstein, Mr., death of, 189 Angoulême's, duke of, proclamation to the Spaniards, [189], 158*—see also Spain
Antiquities, discovery of, at Rome, 48; tesselated pavement discovered at Weyhill, 67; painting of the murder of archbishop Beckett, dis- covered at Wootton Basset, 118; the ancient town of Orea discovered, in Fifeshire, 155 Appellate jurisdiction, [98]; report on, 63*
Appeals, writs of error, &c., report of the House of Lords on, 63* Arctic Seas, animalcules in, 290* ; re- fraction of light, 293*
Arracacha, new esculent plant, de- scription of, 304*
Arts and manufactures, 308* Auricular organs, 289* Aurora Borealis, 294*
Assassination of Mr. Horrocks, at- tempted, 101
Assizes and Sessions: Aylesbury, T. Randall and J. Croker, for murder of Mr. and Mrs. Needle, 36* Chelmsford; Felix Reynolds, rape,
Croydon; P. Stoffel and C. Keppel, murder of Mrs. Richards, 44* Ely; J. Rolfe, murder, 21 Enniskillen; J. Keys, murder of his father, 36
Lincoln; W. Arden, B. Chandeler, and J. Doughty, unnatural erime, 30 Maidstone; W. Donallan, murder of his wife, 103
Manchester; Shore, &c. robbery;
outrage committed by them in court, 140
Middlesex; Jas. Wilson, assault on his own daughter, 128 Staffordshire; Sir G. Jerningham, v. Beech, action of trover, to re- cover the value of trees cut down, 31; Jas. Roxborough and wife, fraud and robbery, 139 Taunton; E. Bryant, &c. maiming,
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