PAGE

Advantages of the Division of Labour.

New Device for American Coin.....393
Argument for Contentment.... ..393
William Melmoth (1710-1799) - Dr. Dr. Adam Ferguson (1724-1816).
John Brown (1715-1766..
..394 On the Changes in Society.

Description of the Vale of Keswick.394 Lord Monboddo (1714-1799).
Horace Walpole (1717-1797)..
Strawberry Hill.

The Scottish Rebellion..

PAGE

..401

402

.402

....402 .404

.404

.406

.395 William Harris-James Harris.. .......396 W. Stukeley (1687-1765)-Edward King ..397 (1735-1807)-Thomas Birch (1705

London Earthquakes and Gossip....399 Dr. Adam Smith (1723–1790)..

-1766)..

.400 Encyclopædias and Magazines.....

CYCLOPÆDIA

OF

ENGLISH LITERATURE.

SIXTH PERIOD,

-(1720-1780.)

GEORGE II. AND GEORGE III.
(Continued.)

A Summer Morning.

With quickened step

Brown night retires: young day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide.

The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top

Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.

Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine;

And from the bladed field the fearful hare

Limps awkward; while along the forest glade
The wild-deer trip, and often turning gaze

At early passenger. Music awakes

The native voice of undissembled joy;

And thick around the woodland hymns arise.

Roused by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves

His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells;
And from the crowded fold, in order, drives
His flock, to taste the verdure of the morn.

Autumn Evening Scene.

But see the fading many-coloured woods,
Shade deepening over shade, the country round
Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
Of every hue, from wan declining green

To sooty dark. These now the lonesome muse,
Low whispering, lead into their leaf-strewn walks,
And give the season in its latest view.

Meantime light-shadowing all, a sober calm
Fleeces unbounded ether; whose least wave
Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn
The gentle current; while illumined wide,
The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the sun,
And through their lucid veil his softened force
Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time,

(1)

For those whom virtue and whom nature charm,
To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd,
And soar above this little scene of things:

To tread low-thoughted vice beneath their feet;
To soothe the throbbing passions into peace;
And woo lone Quiet in her silent walks.
Thus solitary, and in pensive guise,

Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead,

And through the saddened grove, where scarce is heard
One dying strain, to cheer the woodman's toil.
Haply some widowed songster pours his plaint,
Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse;
While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks,

And each wild throat, whose artless strains so late,
Swelled all the music of the swarming shades,
Robbed of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit
On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock,
With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes,
And nought save chattering discord in their note.'
O let not, aimed from some unhuman eye,
The gun the music of the coming year
Destroy; and harmless, unsuspecting harm,
Lay the weak tribes a miserable prey
In mingled murder, fluttering on the ground!
The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,
A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf
Incessant rustles from the mournful grove;
Oft startling such as studious walk below,
And slowly circles through the waving air.
But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs
Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams;
Till choked, and matted with the dreary shower,
The forest-walks, at every rising gale,
Roll wide the withered waste, and whistle bleak.
Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields;
And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race
Their sunny robes resign. E'en what remained
Of bolder fruits falls from the naked tree;
And woods, fields, gardens. orchards all around,
The desolated prospect thrills the soul.

The western sun withdraws the shortened day,
And humid evening, gliding o'er the sky,
In her chill progress, to the ground condensed
The vapour throws. Where creeping waters ooze,
Where marshes stagnate, and where rivers wind,
Cluster the rolling fogs, and swim along
The dusky-mantled lawn. Meanwhile the moon.
Full orbed, and breaking through the scattered clouds,
Shews her broad visage in the crimsoned east.
Turned to the sun direct her spotted disk,

Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend,
And caverns deep, as optic tube descries,

A smaller earth, gives all his blaze again,

Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.

Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime.

Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild
O'er the skied mountain to the shadowy vale,

While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam;
The whole air whitens with a boundless tide

Of silver radiance trembling round the world. . . .