So fhall the rifing year regain

The erring feafons wonted chain;
The rolling months that gird the sphere
Again their wonted liveries wear;
And health breathe fresh in every gale,
And plenty clothe each smiling vale
With all the bleffings nature yields
To temperate funs from fertile fields.
So fhall the proud be taught to bow,
Pale Envy's vain contentions cease,
The fea once more its fovereign know,
And glory gild the wreaths of peace.

ODE for his MAJESTY's Birth-Day, June 4, 1783.

By WILLIAM WHITEHEAD, Efq. Poet-Laureat.

AT length the troubled waters reft,
Α

And, fhadowing Ocean's calmer breast,
Exulting Commerce fpreads her woven wings:
Free as the winds that waft them o'er,

Her iffuing veffels glide from fhore to fhore,
And in the bending fhrouds the careless fea-boy fings.

Is Peace a bleffing?-Ask the mind

That glows with love of human kind,

That knows no guile, no partial weakness knows,
Contracted to no narrow fphere,

The world, the world at large, is umpire here,
They feel, and they enjoy, the bleflings peace bestows.

Then, oh! what blifs his bofom fhares,
Who, confcious of ingenuous worth,

Can nobly fcorn inferior cares,

And fend the generous edict forth;
To diftant fighs of modeft woe
Can lend a pitying lift'ning ear,
Nor fee the meanest forrows flow
Without a fympathifing tear.

Tho' rapine with her fury train
Rove wide and wild o'er earth and main,
In act to strike, tho' flaughter cleave the air,
At his command they drop the fword,

And in their midway courfe his potent word
Arrefts the fhafts of death, of terror, of defpair.

When

When those who have the power to bless
Are readieft to relieve distress,
When private virtues dignify a crown,

The genuine fons of freedom feel

A duty which tranfcends a fubject's zeal,

And dread the man's reproach more than the monarch's frown.

Then to this day be honours paid

The world's proud conqu'rors never knew;

Their laurels fhrink, their glories fade,

Expos'd to reason's fober view.

But reafon, juftice, truth, rejoice,

When difcord's baneful triumphs cease,

And hail with one united voice

The friend of man, the friend of peace.

Extract from MASON's Tranflation of Du Fresnoy's Art of Painting.

"R1

ISE then, ye youths! while yet that warmth infpires,
While yet nor years impair, nor labour tires,

While health, while ftrength are yours, while that mild ray,
Which fhone aufpicious on your natal day,
Conducts you to Minerva's peaceful quire,
Sons of her choice, and sharers of her fire,
Rife at the call of art: expand your breaft,
Capacious to receive the mighty gueft,
While, free from prejudice, your active eye
Preferves its firft anfullied purity;

While new to beauty's charms, your eager foul
Drinks copious draughts of the delicious whole,
And Memory on her foft, yet lafting page,

Stamps the fresh image which shall charm thro' age.
When duly taught each geometric rule,
Approach with awful ftep the Grecian fchool,
The fculptur'd reliques of her skill furvey,
Mufe on by night, and imitate by day ;
No reft, no paufe till, all her graces known,
A happy habit makes each grace your own.
As years advance, to modern masters come,
Gaze on their glories in majestic Rome;
Admire the proud productions of their skill
Which Venice, Parma, and Bologna fill;
And, rightly led by our preceptive lore,

Their ftyle, their colouring, part by part, explore.
See RAPHAEL there his forms celeftial trace,
Unrivall'd fovereign of the realms of grace,
See ANGELO, with energy divine,
Seize on the fummit of correct defign.

Learn how, at JULIO's birth, the Mufes fmil'd,
And in their myftic caverns nurs'd the child;
How, by th' Aonian powers their fmile bestow'd,
His pencil with poetic fervor glow'd;
When faintly verfe Apollo's charms convey'd,
He oped the fhrine, and all the God difplay'd:
His triumphs more than mortal pomp adorns,
With more than mortal rage his battle burns,
His heroes, happy heirs of fav'ring fame,
More from his art than from their actions claim.
Bright, beyond all the reft, CORREGGIO flings
His ample lights, and round them gently brings
The mingling fhade. In all his works we view
Grandeur of style, and chastity of hue.

Yet higher fill great TITIAN dar'd to foar,
He reach'd the loftielt heights of colouring's power;
His friendly tints in happieft mixture flow,
His fhades and lights their juft gradations know,
He knew thofe dear delufions of the art,
That round, relieve, infpirit ev'ry part:

Hence deem'd divine, the world his merit own'd,
With riches loaded, and with honours crown'd,
From all their charms combin'd, with happy toil,
Did ANNIBAL compofe his wond'rous ftyle:
O'er the fair fraud so close a veil is thrown,

That every borrow'd grace becomes his own.
If then to praife like theirs your fouls afpire,
Catch from their works a portion of their fire;
Revolve their labors all, for all will teach,
Their finish'd picture, and their flightest sketch.
Yet more than these to meditation's eyes
Great nature's felf redundantly fupplies :
Her prefence, beft of models! is the fource
Whence genius draws augmented power and force;
Her precepts, beft of teachers! give the powers,
Whence art, by practice, to perfection foars.

Thefe ufeful rules from time and chance to fave,
In Latian ftrains, the ftudious Frefnoy gave;
On Tiber's peaceful banks the poet lay,
What time the pride of Bourbon urg'd his way,
Thro' hoftile camps, and crimson fields of flain,
To vindicate his race and vanquish Spain;
High on the Alps he took his warrior ftand,
And thence, in ardent volley from his hand
His thunder darted; (fo the flatterer fings
In ftrains beft fuited to the ear of kings)
And like Alcides, with vindictive tread,
Cruth'd the Hifpanian lion's gafping head.

But

But mark the Proteus-policy of state:
Now, while his courtly numbers I tranflate,
The foes are friends, in focial league they dare
On Britain to "let flip the dogs of war."
Vain efforts all, which in difgrace shall end,
If Britain, truly to herself a friend,
Thro' all her realms bids civil difcord ceafe,
And heals her empire's wounds by arts of peace.
Roufe then, fair freedom! fan that holy flame
From whence thy fons their dearest blessings claim;
Still bid them feel that fcorn of lawless fway,
Which intereft cannot blind, nor power difmay :
So fhall the throne, thou gav'ft the Brunswick line,
Long by that race adorn'd, thy dread palladium shine.”

An Extract from THE VILLAGE, a Poem by the Rev. G. CRAEBE, Chaplain to his Grace the Duke of Rutland, &c.

YE gentle fouls who dream of rural ease,

Whom the smooth stream and smoother fonnet please;

Go! if the peaceful cot your praises share,
Go look within, and ask if peace be there :
If peace be his-that drooping weary fire,
Or their's, that offspring round their feeble fire,
Or her's, that matron pale, whofe trembling hand
Turns on the wretched hearth th' expiring brand.
Nor yet can time itself obtain for these
Life's latest comforts, due refpect and eafe;
For yonder fee that hoary fwain, whofe age
Can with no cares except its own engage;
Who, propt on that rude ftaff, looks up to fee
The bare arms broken from the withering tree;
On which, a boy, he climb'd the loftieft bough,
Then his firft joy, but his fad emblem now.

He once was chief in all the rustic trade,
His fteady hand the ftraiteft furrow made;
Full many a prize he won, and ftill is proud
To find the triumphs of his youth allow'd;
A tranfient pleasure fparkles in his eyes,

He hears and fmiles, then thinks again and fighs:
For now he journeys to his grave in pain;
The rich disdain him; nay, the poor disdain;
Alternate masters now their flave command,
And urge the efforts of his feeble hand;
Who, when his age attempts its task in vain,
With ruthlefs taunts of lazy poor complain.

N

4

Oft

Oft may you fee him when he tends the sheep,
His winter charge, beneath the hillock weep;
Oft hear him murmur to the winds that blow
O'er his white locks, and bury them in fnow;
When rouz'd by rage and muttering in the morn,
He mends the broken hedge with icy thorn.
"Why do I live, when I defire to be
At once from life and life's long labour free?
Like leaves in fpring, the young are blown away,
Without the forrows of a flow decay;

I, like yon wither'd leaf, remain behind,
Nipt by the froft and fhivering in the wind;
There it abides till younger buds come on,
As I, now all my fellow fwains are gone;
Then, from the rifing generation thrust,
It falls, like me, unnotic'd, to the duft.

"Thefe fruitful fields, thefe numerous flocks I fee,
Are others' gain, but killing cares to me;
To me, the children of my youth are lords,
Slow in their gifts, but hafty in their words;
Wants of their own demand their care, and who
Feels his own want and fuccours others too?
A lonely, wretched man, in pain I go,
None need my help and none relieve my woe ;
Then let my bones beneath the turf be laid,
And men forget the wretch they would not aid.”
Thus groan the old, till by difeafe oppreit,
They tafte a final woe, and then they reft.
Their's is yon houfe that holds the parish poor,
Whose walls of mud fcarce bear the broken door;
There, where the putrid vapours, flagging, play,
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day;
There children dwell who know no parents' care,
Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there;
Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed,
Forfaken wives and mothers never wed;
Dejected widows with unheeded tears,

And crippled age with more than childhood-fears;
The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they !
The moping idiot and the madman gay.

Here too the fick their final doom receive,
Here brought amid the fcenes of grief, to grieve;
Where the loud groans from fome fad chamber flow,
Mixt with the clamours of the croud below;
Here forrowing, they each kindred forrow fcan,
And the cold charities of man to man.
Whofe laws indeed for ruin'd age provide,

And ftrong compulfion plucks the fcrap from pride;

Bat