grotto, his alcove and his giant's cave, does not shed a tear to the memory of Valentine Morris? Noble, liberal, and high-minded; hospitable, elegant, and munificent; above all, an enthusiastic admirer of Nature's nobler features, this accomplished man first displayed those unrivalled beauties to the eye of taste. With a discriminative hand, he uplifted, as it were, the veil from the bosom of Nature, without discovering the hand that lifted it. Embarrassed in these attempts to improve his domain; his hospitalities knowing no bounds; his ambition of representing the county of Monmouth in parliament ungratified; and oppressed by some unforeseen contingencies; he was under the melancholy necessity of parting with his estate, at the time in which he was appointed governor of the Island of St. Vincent. Before he quitted England, he visited Piercefield, in order to take his last farewell of its transcendant beauties. Upon his arrival, the poor, who loved him as a father, crowded round; the men with looks of sorrow; the women and children with sighs and tears. While this melancholy scene was passing and while some of the poor went down upon their knees to implore blessings upon him, Morris stood unmoved: not a sigh, nor a tear escaped him. When, however, he crossed Chepstow Bridge, and took a last view of the castle, which, standing on the edge of a high perpendicular rock, overlooks the Wye, and heard the sounds of the muffled bells, which announced his departure, he could no longer support the firmness of his character; but leaned back in his carriage, and wept like an

infant.' In the Isle of St. Vincent, he improved the state of the colony, and raised works for its defence: but the island fell into the hands of the French; and Government refused to reimburse the governor! Thus sinned against, he was thrown into the King's Bench prison by his creditors, on his return to England; and, during the space of seven years, endured all the hardships of extreme poverty. Thus reduced, his wife, who was niece to Lord Peterborough, and who had sold her clothes to purchase her husband bread, became insane! After enduring these multiplied calamities, for the space of seven years, he was at length released; and, after long years of suffering, died in comparative ease and comfort, at the house of a relative in Bloomsbury Square.

The late unfortunate COLLINS, gifted with an amiable disposition and a powerful imagination, and therefore little qualified to play the cunning game of life, was peculiarly susceptible of the grand and the beautiful. His ode to Liberty testifies his love of freedom; his ode to Evening, the delicacy of his feelings, and the elegance of his taste; and how desirous he was of beholding the scenery of Scotland, the following stanza will sufficiently demonstrate :— ́All hail, ye scenes, that o'er my soul prevail ! Ye splendid friths and lakes, which, far away, Are by smooth Aunan fill'd, or pastoral Tay, Or Don's romantic springs, at distance, hail !

Archdeacon Coxe's Hist. of Monmouthshire.

The time may come, when I, perhaps, may tread
Your lowly glens, o'erbung with spreading broom ;
Or o'er your stretching heaths, by fancy led,

Or o'er your mountains creep, in awful gloom.
Then will I dress, once more, the faded bower,
Where Jonson sat in Drummond's classic shade;

Or crop from Teviot dale each lyric flower,

Or mourn, on Yarrow's banks, the widow'd maid!.

Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands, st. xiii.

The pleasure, which GRAY, whose poems exhibit a brilliant cento of polished diamonds, derived from the productions of Nature in general, may be observed in many passages of his poetical works; and more particularly in his letters, describing the scenery around the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland. This, of all our English poets, my Lelius, is the one, who, in common with Pliny,' Quintilian, and Virgil, has been reproached for solicitude in correction. As this is no common foible; let it pass. Those who reproached them, are scarcely known, even by name; while those, who were censured, claim the highest niches in the temple of Fame:-Virgil and Gray as poets; Pliny as a naturalist; and Quintilian as a critic.

The enjoyment, which Gray received from wandering beneath the shades of Cambridge, and on the banks of its classic river, we may conceive from the following passage in his ode to Music.

1 And yet Pliny himself censures this solicitude in Protogens: xxxv. c. 10. Aud Cicero blames it in an orator. De Orat. 73.

Ye brown o'er-arching groves!
That Contemplation loves!

Where willowy Camus lingers with delight;

Oft at the blush of dawn

I trod your level lawn ;

Oft would the gleam of Cynthia's silver bright,
In cloisters dim, far from the haunts of folly,
With Freedom by my side and soft-eyed Melancholy.

Ode to Music, st. iii.

PORTEUS, the late bishop of London, was a lover of the more tranquil style of scenery; and being, in the earlier part of his life, presented to the rectory of Hunton by the excellent Archbishop Secker, he embellished his parsonage with all the elegance of a refined taste. To this spot he was devotedly attached; and even continued to reside there, for some months in the year, after his promotion to the bishoprick of Chester. Never was there a better man than Dr. Porteus! And, for the honour of the age in which he lived, let him ever be distin guished by the title of the "GOOD BISHOP OF LONDON." To him are the slaves of Africa, in a great degree, indebted for the abolition of that monstrous traffic, which continued so long a disgrace to this happy country. He assisted in the formation of a society for their conversion to the Christian faith; he was warm encourager of Sunday schools; and an early patronizer of the British system of public education. As a master, he was so kind and indulgent, that his servants shed tears over his grave ;-as a friend, he was ardent and sincere ;-as a preacher, so admirable in delivery; in language so elegant; in argu

ment so striking; that a whole court hung with holiest rapture on his lips. And never, in the history of polished society, was a more admiring audience assembled, than at the lectures, which at the advanced age of sixty-seven, he delivered from the pulpit of St. James's church in the city of Westminster. Only one spot rests upon the memory of Porteus, Bishop of London! It is the following passage in his poem on Death

-War its thousands slays :

Peace its ten thousands!

To confound peace with luxury argues little of logic; and places a sword in the hands of the hero, which that most excellent bishop could never have intended.

XVIII.

France has produced many genuine lovers of Nature; among whom not the least distinguished are Rousseau and St. Pierre. Fenelon, too, the amiable and illustrious Fenelon, the tutor of princes, and the

1

1 St. Pierre, it must be confessed, was, in many instances, a visionary; but he was a beautiful writer: and what his editor, Mons. Louis Aimé-Martin, says of him is true to the very letter." Buffon," says he, "has been called the painter of Nature; but St. Pierre has a title to be accounted her most ardent admirer. He dwells on her charms with ́unceasing transport, and no one is more successful in inspiring others with a kindred feeling. His pages are full of life and eloquence, because he felt himself what he told to others. Like Armida, he may be said to have constructed an enchanted palace, in which the spectator forgets, for a season, the foibles, the passions, and the vexations of his species."