EDWARD MOORE was the son of a dissenting clergyman at Abingdon, in Berkshire, and was bred to the business of a linen-draper, which he pursued, however, both in London and Ireland, with so little success, that he embraced the literary life (according to his own account) more from necessity than inclination. His Fables (in 1744) first brought him into notice. The Right Honourable Mr. Pelham was one of his earliest friends; and his Trial of Selim gained him the friendship of Lord Lyttelton. Of three works which he produced for the stage, his two comedies, the "Foundling" and "Gil Blas," were unsuccessful; but he was fully indemnified by the profits and reputation of the "Gamester." Moore himself acknowledges that he owed to Garrick many popular passages of his drama; and Davies, the biographer of Garrick, ascribes to the great actor the whole scene between Lewson and Stukely, in the fourth act; but Davies's authority is not oracular. About the year 1751, Lord Lyttelton, in concert with Dodsley, projected the paper of the "World," of which it was agreed that Moore should enjoy the profits, whether the numbers were written by himself or by volunteer contributors. Lyttelton's interest soon enlisted many accomplished coadjutors, such as Cambridge, Jenyns, Lord Chesterfield, and H. Walpole. Moore himself wrote sixty-one of the papers. In the last number of the " World" the conclusion is made to depend on a fictitious incident which had occasioned the death of the author. When the papers were collected into volumes, Moore, who superintended the publication, realized this jocular fiction by his own death, whilst the last number was in the press.* Is it with you she rests? No. Int'rest, slander are your views, And Virtue now, with every Muse, Flies your un hallow'd breasts. There was a time, I heard her say, To Love and her unknown. From these th' indignant goddess flies,' And pois'ning every spring. Long through the sky's wide pathless way And mark'd her last retreat; There she beholds the gentle Mole Amidst Elysian ground: There through the winding of the grove And strews her sweets around. I hear her bid the daughters fair Her secret steps to meet: "Nor thou," she cries, "these shades forsake, But come, loved consort, come and make The husband's bliss complete." Yet not too much the soothing ease My Pelham's ardent breast; When bold Rebellion shook the land, When Valour droop'd, and Wisdom fear'd, Thy voice expiring Credit heard, And raised her languid head. Now by thy strong assisting hand, Fix'd on a rock I see her stand, Against whose solid feet, In vain, through every future age, The loudest most tempestuous rage Of angry war shall beat. And grieve not if the sons of Strife And shade its brightest scenes; Like these, the metaphysic crew, Think all they see deceit; Yet doubt of light and heat. THE HAPPY MARRIAGE. How blest has my time been! what joys have I known, Since wedlock's soft bondage made Jessy my own! Through walks grown with woodbines, as often we stray, Around us our boys and girls frolic and play: To try her sweet temper, ofttimes am I seen, And meets me at night with complacence and smiles. JOHN DYER. [Born, 1700. Died, 1758.] DYER was the son of a solicitor at Aberglasney, in Caermarthenshire. He was educated at Westminster school, and returned from thence to be instructed in his father's profession, but left it for poetry and painting; and, having studied the arts of design under a master, was for some time, as he says, an itinerant painter in Wales. Dividing his affections, however, between the sister Muses he indited (1726) his Grongar Hill amidst those excursions. It was published about his twenty-seventh year. He afterward made the tour of Italy in the spirit both of an artist and poet, and, besides studying pictures and prospects, composed a poem on the Ruins of Rome. On his return to England he married a lady of the name of Ensor, a descendant of Shakspeare, retired into the country, and entered into orders. His last preferment was to the living of Kirkely on Bane. The witticism on his " Fleece," related by Dr. Johnson, that its author, if he was an old man, would be buried in woollen, has, perhaps, been oftener repeated than any passage in the poem itself. GRONGAR HILL. SILENT nymph, with curious eye! Who, the purple evening, lie On the mountain's lonely van, Beyond the noise of busy man; Painting fair the form of things, While the yellow linnet sings; Or the tuneful nightingale Charms the forest with her tale; Come, with all thy various hues, Come, and aid thy sister Muse; Now, while Phoebus riding high Gives lustre to the land and sky! Grongar Hill invites my song, Draw the landscape bright and strong; Grongar, in whose mossy cells, Sweetly musing, Quiet dwells; Grongar, in whose silent shade, For the modest Muses made, So oft I have, the evening still, At the fountain of a rill, Sat upon a flow'ry bed, With my hand beneath my head; While stray'd my eyes o'er Towy's flood, From house to house, from hill to hill, About his chequer'd sides I wind, Withdraw their summits from the skies, And lessen as the others rise: Still the prospect wider spreads, Adds a thousand woods and meads; Still it widens, widens still, And sinks the newly-risen hill. [* In Lewis' Miscellanies, 1726.] 61 Now I gain the mountain's brow. Old castles on the cliffs arise, Below me trees unnumber'd rise, The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs. On which a dark hill, steep and high, "Tis now the raven's bleak abode; 481 Yet time has seen, that lifts the low, But transient is the smile of fate! And see the rivers how they run, Ever charming, ever new, See on the mountain's southern side, So we mistake the future's face, O may I with myself agree, Be full, ye courts; be great who will; Search for peace with all your skill; Open wide the lofty door, Seek her on the marble floor; And often, by the murmuring rill, ALLAN RAMSAY. [Born, 1686. Died, 1757.] THE personal history of Allan Ramsay is marked by few circumstances of striking interest; yet, independently of his poetry, he cannot be reckoned an insignificant individual who gave Scotland her first circulating library, and who established her first regular theatre. He was born in the parish of Crawford Moor, in Lanarkshire, where his father had the charge of Lord Hopeton's lead-mines. His mother, Alice Bower, was the daughter of an Englishman who had emigrated to that place from Derbyshire. By his paternal descent the poet boasts of having [* See Byron's remark on this passage. Life and Works, vol. vi. p. 365.] [t Lord Byron asks, (vol. vi. p. 366,) "Is not this the original of Mr. Campbell's far-famed, 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, We answer for Mr. Campbell, decidedly not!] Apropos to this delicate distinction of the Scottish biographer may be mentioned the advertisement of a sprung from "a Douglas loin;" but, owing to the early death of his father, his education was con fined to a parish-school, and at the age of fifteen he was bound apprentice to the humble business of a wig-maker. On this subject one of his Scottish biographers refutes, with some indignation, a report which had gone abroad, that our poet was bred a barber, and carefully instructs the reader, that in those good times, when a fashionable wig cost twenty guineas, the employ ment of manufacturing them was both lucrative and creditable. Ramsay, however, seems to have French perruquier in the Palais Royal, who ranks his business among the "imitative arts." A London artist in the same profession had a similar jealousy with the historian of Ramsay's life, at the idea of mere trimmer of the human face" being confounded with "genuine" perruquiers." In advertising his crop-wigs he alluded to some wig-weaving competitors, whom he denominated "mere hair-dressers and barbers;" and "shall a barber (he exclaims) affect to rival these crops?" "Barbarus has segetes."-VIRGIL. felt no ambition either for the honours or profits of the vocation, as he left it on finishing his apprenticeship. In his twenty-fourth y year he married the daughter of a writer, or attorney, in Edinburgh. His eldest son* rose to well-known eminence as a painter. Our poet's first means of subsistence after his marriage, were to publish small poetical productions in a cheap form, which became so popular, that even in this humble sale he was obliged to call upon the magistrates to protect his literary property from the piracy of the hawkers. He afterward set up as a bookseller, and published, at his own shop, a new edition of "Christ's Kirk on the Green," with two cantos of his own subjoined to the ancient original, which is ascribed to James I. of Scotland. A passage in one of those modern cantos of Ramsay's describing a husband fascinated homewards from a scene of drunkenness by the gentle persuasions of his wife, has been tastefully selected by Wilkie, and been made the subject of his admirable pencil. In 1724 he published a collection of popular Scottish songs, called the Tea-Table Miscellany, which speedily ran through twelve impressions. Ruddiman assisted him in the glossary, and Hamilton of Bangoor, Crawfurd, and Mallet were among the contributors to his modern songs. In the same year appeared his Evergreen, a collection of pieces from the Bannatyne MSS. written before the year 1600. Here the vanity of adorning what it was his duty to have faithfully transcribed led him to take many liberties with the originals; and it is pretty clear that one poem, viz. the Vision, which he pretended to have found in ancient manuscript, was the fruit of his own brain. But the Vision, considered as his own, adds a plume to his poetical character which may overshade his defects as an editor. In 1726 he published his Gentle Shepherd. The first rudiments of that pleasing drama had been given to the public in two pastoral dialogues, which were so much liked that his friends exhorted him to extend them into a regular play. The reception of this piece soon extended his reputation beyond Scotland. His works were reprinted at Dublin, and became popular in the colonies. Pope was known to admire The Gentle Shepherd; and Gay, when he was in Scotland, * This son of the poet was a man of literature as well as genius. The following whimsical specimen of his poetry is subjoined as a curiosity. The humorous substitution of the kirk-treasury man for Horace's wolf, in the third stanza. will only be recognised by those who understand the importance of that ecclesiastical officer in Scotland, and the powers with which he is invested for summoning delinquents before the clergy and elders, in cases of illegitimate love. HORACE'S "INTEGER VITÆ,” &c. BY ALLAN RAMSAY, JUN. A man of no base (John) life or conversation, at | sought for explanations of its phrases, that he might communicate them to his friend Twickenham. Ramsay's shop was a great resort of the congenial fabulist while he remained in Edinburgh; and from its windows, which overlooked the Exchange, the Scottish poet used to point out to Gay the most remarkable characters of the place. A second volume of his poems appeared in 1728; and in 1730 he published a collection of fables. His epistles in the former volume are generally indifferent; but there is one addressed to the poet Somervile, which contains some easy lines. Professing to write from nature more than art, he compares, with some beauty, the rude style which he loved and practised, to a neglected orchard. I love the garden wild and wide, Where oaks have pium-trees by their side, Its wimplings led by nature's hand; And all looks stiff, mean, and confined. Of original poets he says, in one expressive couplet: The native bards first plunged the deep, About the age of forty-five he ceased to write for the public. The most remarkable circumstance of his life was an attempt which he made to establish a theatre in Edinburgh. Our poet had been always fond of the drama, and had occasionally supplied prologues to the players who visited the northern capital. But though the age of fanaticism was wearing away, it had not yet suffered the drama to have a settled place of exhibition in Scotland; and when Ramsay had, with great expense, in the year 1736, fitted up a theatre in Carubber's Close, the act for licensing the stage, which was passed in the following year, gave the magistrates of Edinburgh a power of shutting it up, which they exerted with gloomy severity. Such was the popular hatred of playhouses in Scotland at this period, that, some time For but last Monday, walking at noon-day, And sure more horrid monster in the torrid- Should I buy hap land on the coast of Lapland, Place me where tea grows, or where sooty negroes, |