THE father of this writer was a fellow of Pembroke college, Oxford, prebendary of Wells, and vicar of St. Mary's at Taunton, in Somersetshire. When Judge Jefferies came to the assizes at Taunton, to execute vengeance on the sharers of Monmouth's rebellion, Mr. Harte waited upon him in private, and remonstrated against his severities. The judge listened to. him attentively, though he had never seen him before. It was not in Jefferies' nature to practise humanity; but, in this solitary instance, he showed a respect for its advocate; and in a few months advanced the vicar to a prebendal stall in the cathedral of Bristol. At the Revolution the aged clergyman resigned his preferments, rather than take the oath of allegiance to King William; an action which raises our esteem of his intercession with Jefferies, while it adds to the unsalutary examples of men supporting tyrants, who have had the virtue to hate their tyranny.

The accounts that are preserved of his son, the poet, are not very minute or interesting. The date of his birth has not even been settled. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine fixes it about 1707; but by the date of his degrees at the university, this supposition is utterly inadmissible; and all circumstances considered, it is impossible to suppose that he was born later than 1700. He was educated at Marlborough college, and took his degree of master of arts at Oxford, in 1720. He was introduced to Pope at an early period of his life; and, in return for the abundant adulation which he offered to that poet, was rewarded with his encouragement, and even his occasional assistance in versification. Yet, admirer as he was of Pope, his manner leans more to the imitation of Dryden. In 1727 he published, by subscription, a volume of poems, which he dedicated to the Earl of Peterborough, who, as the author acknowledges, was the first patron of his muse. In the preface it is boasted, that the poems had been chiefly written under the age of nineteen. As he must have been several years turned of twenty, when he made this boast, it exposes either his sense or veracity to some suspicion. He either concealed what improvements he had made in the poems, or showed a bad judgment in not having improved them.

[* This, according to Mr. Croker's showing, (Boswell, vol. i. p. 378) is not the case. The Walter Harte who took his degree of A.M. at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1720, was not the poet; for he was of St. Mary's Hall, and made A.M. on the 21st January 1730. This one fact removes Mr. Campbell's after difficulties.]

His next publications, in 1730 and 1735, were an "Essay on Satire," and another on "Reason," to both of which Pope is supposed to have contributed many lines. Two sermons, which he printed, were so popular as to run through five editions. He therefore rose, with some degree of clerical reputation, to be principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxford; and was so much esteemed, that Lord Lyttelton recommended him to the Earl of Chesterfield, as the most proper tutor and travelling companion to his son. Harte had, indeed, every requisite for the preceptorship of Mr. Stanhope, that a Grævius or Gronovius could have possessed; but none of those for which we should have supposed his father to have been most anxious. He was profoundly learned, but ignorant of the world, and awkward in his person and address. His pupil and he, however, after having travelled together for four years, parted with mutual regret; and Lord Chesterfield showed his regard for Harte by procuring for him a canonry of Windsor.

During his connexion with Lord Peterborough, that nobleman had frequently recommended to him to write the life of Gustavus Adolphus. For this historical work he collected, during his travels, much authentic and original information. It employed him for many years, and was published in 1759; but either from a vicious taste, or from his having studied the idioms of foreign languages, till he had forgotten those of his own, he wrote his history in a style so obscure and uncouth, that its merits, as a work of research, were overlooked, and its reception from the public was cold and mortifying. Lord Chesterfield, in speaking of its being translated into German, piously wishes "that its author had translated it into English; as it was full of Germanisms, Latinisms, and all isms but Anglicisms." All the time, poor Harte thought he was writing a style less laboured and ornate than that of his contemporaries; and when George Hawkins, the bookseller, objected to some of his most violent phrases, he used to say, "George, that is what we call writing." This infatuation is the more surprising, that his Sermons, already mentioned, are marked by no such affectation of manner; and he published in 1764 "Essays on Husbandry," which are said to be remarkable for their elegance and perspicuity.

Dr. Johnson, according to Boswell, said, "that Harte was excessively vain: that he left London on the day his Life of Gustavus' was published, to avoid the great praise he was to receive; but

Robertson's History of Scotland' having come out the same day, he was ashamed to return to the scene of his mortification." This sarcastic anecdote comes in the suspicious company of a blunder as to dates, for Robertson's "History of Scotland" was published a month after [before ] Harte's "Life of Gustavus ;" and it is besides rather an odd proof of a man's vanity, that he should have run away from expected compliments+.

The failure of his historical work is alleged to have mortified him so deeply, as to have affected his health. All the evidence of this, however, is deduced from some expressions in his letters, in which he complains of frequent indisposition. His biographers, first of all take it for granted, that a man of threescore could not possibly be indisposed from any other cause than from reading harsh reviews of his "Life of Gustavus ;" and then, very consistently, show the folly of his being grieved at the fate of his history, by proving that his work was reviewed, on the whole, rather in a friendly and laudatory manner. Harte, however, was so far from being a martyr, either

to the justice or injustice of criticism, that he prepared a second edition of the "Life of Gustavus" for the press; and announced, in a note, that he had finished the "History of the thirty years War in Germany." His servant Dore, afterwards an innkeeper at Bath, got possession of his MSS. and this work is supposed to be irrecoverably lost. In the mean time, he was struck with a palsy in 1766, which attacked him again in 1769, and put a period to his life five years after. At the time of his death he was vicar of St. Austel and Blazy in Cornwall.

His poetry is little read; and I am aware of hazarding the appearance of no great elegance of taste, in professing myself amused and interested by several parts of it, particularly by his "Amaranth." In spite of pedantry and grotesqueness, he appears, in numerous passages, to have condensed the reflection and information of no ordinary mind. If the reader dislikes his story of "Eulogius," I have only to inform him, that I have taken some pains to prevent its being more prolix than is absolutely necessary, by the mechanical reduction of its superfluities.

In ancient times scarce talk'd of, and less known,
When pious Justin fill'd the eastern throne,
In a small dorp, till then for nothing famed,
And by the neighbouring swains Thebaïs named,
Eulogius lived an humble mason he;
In nothing rich, but virtuous poverty.
From noise and riot he devoutly kept,
Sigh'd with the sick, and with the mourner wept;
Half his earn'd pittance to poor neighbours went;
They had his alms and he had his content.
Still from his little he could something spare
To feed the hungry, and to clothe the bare,
He

gave, v ,whilst aught he had, and knew no bounds; The poor man's drachma stood for rich men's pounds;

He learnt with patience, and with meekness taught, His life was but the comment of his thought.

On the south aspect of a sloping hill, Whose skirts meandering Penus washes still,

[ Boswell by Croker, vol. iv. p. 449.]

[f "Harte's Life of Gustavus Adolphus, Mr. Chalmers tells us, was a very unfortunate publication. Hume's House of Tudor came out the same week, and Robertson's History of Scotland only a month before; and after perusing these, poor Harte's style could not certainly be endured. Mr. Chalmers perhaps may require to be told that industry in collecting, examining, and arranging the materials of history, and fidelity in using them, are the first qualities of an historian: that in those qualities Harte has not been surpassed; that in the opinion of military men Harte's is the best military history in our language, and that it is rising and will continue to rise in repute."-SOUTHEY, Quar. Rev. vol. xi. p. 497.]

Our pious labourer pass'd his youthful days
In peace and charity, in prayer and praise.
No theatres of oaks around him rise,
Whose roots earth's centre touch, whose head the
skies;

No stately larch-tree there expands a shade
O'er half a rood of Larisséan glade:
No lofty poplars catch the murmuring breeze,
Which loiteringwhispers on the cloud-capp'd trees;
Such imagery of greatness ill became

A nameless dwelling, and an unknown name!
Instead of forest-monarchs, and their train,
The unambitious rose bedeck'd the plain;
On skirting heights thick stood the clustering vine,
And here and there the sweet-leaved eglantine;
One lilac only, with a statelier grace,
Presumed to claim the oak's and cedar's place,
And, looking round him with a monarch's care,
Spread his exalted boughs to wave in air.

This spot, for dwelling fit, Eulogius chose,
And in a month a decent home-stall rose,
Something, between a cottage and a cell-
Yet virtue here could sleep, and peace could dwell.
From living stone (but not of Parian rocks),
He chipp'd his pavement, and he squared his

blocks :

And then, without the aid of neighbours' art,
Perform'd the carpenter's and glazier's part.
The site was neither granted him, nor giv'n ;
"Twas nature's ; and the ground-rent due to heav'n.
Wife he had none: nor had he love to spare;
An aged mother wanted all his care.

Ye reptile cits, that oft have moved my spleen
With Venus and the Graces on your green!
Let Plutus, growling o'er his ill-got wealth,
Let Mercury, the thriving god of stealth,
The shopman, Janus, with his double looks,
Rise on your mounts, and perch upon your books!
But spare my Venus, spare each sister Grace,
Ye cits, that sore bedizen nature's face!

Ye royal architects, whose antic taste
Would lay the realms of sense and nature waste;
Forgot, whenever from her steps ye stray,
That folly only points each other way;
Here, though your eye no courtly creature sees,
Snakes on the ground, or monkeys in the trees;
Yet let not too severe a censure fall
On the plain precincts of the ancient hall.

For though no sight your childish fancy meets, Of Thibet's dogs, or China's paroquets ; Though apes, asps, lizards, things without a tail, And all the tribes of foreign monsters fail ; Here shall ye sigh to see, with rust o'ergrown, The iron griffin and the sphinx of stone; And mourn, neglected in their waste abodes, Fire-breathing drakes, and water-spouting gods.

Long have these mighty monsters known disgrace, Yet still some trophies hold their ancient place; Where, round the hall, the oak's high surbase rears The field-day triumphs of two hundred years.

Th' enormous antlers here recal the day That saw the forest monarch forced away; Who, many a flood, and many a mountain pass'd, Not finding those, nor deeming these the last, O'er floods, o'er mountains yet prepared to fly, Long ere the death-drop fill'd his failing eye! Here famed for cunning, and in crimes grown old, Hangs his gray brush, the felon of the fold. Oft as the rent-feast swells the midnight cheer, The maudlin farmer kens him o'er his beer, And tells his old, traditionary tale, Though known to ev'ry tenant of the vale.

Here, where of old the festal ox has fed, Mark'd with his weight, the mighty horns are

spread!

Some ox, O Marshall, for a board like thine,
Where the vast master with the vast sirloin
Vied in round magnitude-Respect I bear
To thee, though oft the ruin of the chair.

These, and such antique tokens that record
The manly spirit, and the bounteous board,
Me more delight than all the gewgaw train,
The whims and zigzags of a modern brain,
More than all Asia's marmosets to view,
Grin, frisk, and water in the walks of Kew.
Through these fair valleys, stranger, hast thou
stray'd,

By any chance, to visit Harewood's shade,
And seen with honest, antiquated air,
In the plain hall the magistratial chair?
There Herbert sat-The love of human kind,
Pure light of truth, and temperance of mind,
In the free eye the featured soul display'd,
Honour's strong beam, and Mercy's melting shade:

Justice that, in the rigid paths of law,

Would still some drops from Pity's fountain draw,
Bend o'er her urn with many a gen'rous fear,
Ere his firm seal should force one orphan's tear;
Fair equity, and reason scorning art,

And all the sober virtues of the heart-
These sat with Herbert, these shall best avail
Where statutes order, or where statutes fail.
Be this, ye rural magistrates, your plan :
Firm be your justice, but be friends to man.
He whom the mighty master of this ball
We fondly deem, or farcically call,
To own the patriarch's truth, however loth,
Holds but a mansion crush'd before the moth.

Frail in his genius, in his heart too frail,
Born but to err, and erring to bewail,
Shalt thou his faults with eye severe explore,
And give to life one human weakness more?

Still mark if vice or nature prompts the deed;
Still mark the strong temptation and the need:
On pressing want, on famine's powerful call,
At least more lenient let thy justice fall.

For him, who, lost to ev'ry hope of life, Has long with fortune held unequal strife, Known to no human love, no human care, The friendless, homeless object of despair; For the poor vagrant feel, while he complains, Nor from sad freedom send to sadder chains. Alike, if folly or misfortune brought Those last of woes his evil days have wrought; Believe with social mercy and with me, Folly's misfortune in the first degree.

Perhaps on some inhospitable shore The houseless wretch a widow'd parent bore; Who then, no more by golden prospects led, Of the poor Indian begg'd a leafy bed. Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain, Perhaps that parent mourn'd her soldier slain; Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew, The big drops mingling with the milk he drew, Gave the sad presage of his future years, The child of misery, baptised in tears * !

[* This passage, beautiful in itself, has an associated interest beyond its beauty. "The only thing I remember,” says Sir Walter Scott, "which was remarkable in Burns' manner, was the effect produced upon him by a print of Bunbury's, representing a soldier lying dead on the snow: his dog sitting in misery on one side,-on the other, his widow, with a child in her arms. These lines were written beneath :

Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain, &c. Burns seemed much affected by the print, or rather the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the lines were, and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's, called by the unpromising title of The Justice of Peace. I whispered my information to a friend present, who mentioned it to Burns, who rewarded me with a look and a word, which though of mere civility, I then received, and still recollect with very great pleasure.”—Lockhart's Life of Burns, 8vo ed. p. 151.

Burns it is said foretold the future fame of Scott: "That boy will be heard of yet: "

'Tis certainly mysterious that the name
Of prophets and of poets is the same.]

GIPSIES.

FROM THE SAME.

THE gipsy-race my pity rarely move;
Yet their strong thirst of liberty I love.
Not Wilkes, our Freedom's holy martyr, more;
Nor his firm phalanx of the common shore.

For this in Norwood's patrimonial groves
The tawny father with his offspring roves;
When summer suns lead slow the sultry day,
In mossy caves, where welling waters play,
Fann'd by each gale that cools the fervid sky,
With this in ragged luxury they lie.
Oft at the sun the dusky elfins strain
The sable eye, then snugging, sleep again;
Oft as the dews of cooler evening fall,
For their prophetic mother's mantle call.

Far other cares that wand'ring mother wait,
The mouth, and oft the minister of fate!
From her to hear, in ev'ning's friendly shade,
Of future fortune, flies the village-maid,
Draws her long-hoarded copper from its hold,
And rusty halfpence purchase hopes of gold.

But, ah! ye maids, beware the gipsy's lures!
She opens not the womb of time, but yours.
Oft has her hands the hapless Marian wrung,
Marian, whom Gay in sweetest strains has sung!
The parson's maid-sore cause had she to rue
The gipsy's tongue; the parson's daughter too.
Long had that anxious daughter sigh'd to know
What Vellum's sprucy clerk, the valley's beau,
Meant by those glances which at church he stole,
Her father nodding to the psalm's slow drawl;
Long had she sigh'd; at length a prophet came,
By many a sure prediction known to fame,
To Marian known, and all she told, for true :
She knew the future, for the past she knew.

FROM THE SAME. PART II.

Appeal for the industrious Poor-Rapacity of Clerks and Overseers-Scene of actual misery, which the Author had witnessed.

BUT still, forgot the grandeur of thy reign,
Descend to duties meaner crowns disdain ;
That worst excrescency of power forego,
That pride of kings, humanity's first foe.
Let age no longer toil with feeble strife,
Worn by long service in the war of life;

Say to thy heart (remembering him who said,)
"These people come from far, and have no bread.”
Nor leave thy venal clerk empower'd to hear;
The voice of want is sacred to thy ear.

He where no fees his sordid pen invite,
Sports with their tears, too indolent to write;
Like the fed monkey in the fable, vain
To hear more helpless animals complain.

But chief thy notice shall one monster claim;
A monster furnish'd with a human frame,
The parish-officer !-though verse disdain
Terms that deform the splendour of the strain;
It stoops to bid thee bend the brow severe
On the sly, pilfering, cruel, overseer;
The shuffling farmer, faithful to no trust,
Ruthless as rocks, insatiate as the dust!
When the poor hind, with length of years decay'd,
Leans feebly on his once-subduing spade,
Forgot the service of his abler days,

His profitable toil, and honest praise,
Shall this low wretch abridge his scanty bread,
This slave, whose board his former labours spread!

When harvest's burning suns and sickening air From labour's unbraced hand the grasp'd hook tear, Where shall the helpless family be fed,

That vainly languish for a father's bread?
See the pale mother, sunk with grief and care,
To the proud farmer fearfully repair;
Soon to be sent with insolence away,
Referr❜d to vestries, and a distant day!
Referr'd-to perish!-Is my verse severe ?
Unfriendly to the human character?
Ah! to this sigh of sad experience trust:
The truth is rigid, but the tale is just.

If in thy courts this caitiff wretch appear,
Think not that patience were a virtue here.
His low-born pride with honest rage control;
Smite his hard heart, and shake his reptile soul.
But, hapless! oft through fear of future woe,
And certain vengeance of th' insulting foe,
Oft, ere to thee the poor prefer their pray'r,
The last extremes of penury they bear.

Wouldst thou then raise thy patriot office higher,
To something more than magistrate aspire ?
And, left each poorer, pettier chase behind,
Step nobly forth, the friend of human kind?
The game I start courageously pursue!
Adieu to fear! to insolence adieu !

And first we'll range this mountain's stormy side,
Where the rude winds the shepherd's roof deride,
As meet no more the wintry blast to bear,
And all the wild hostilities of air.

UNNUMBER'D objects ask thy honest care,
Beside the orphan's tear, the widow's prayer :
Far as thy power can save, thy bounty bless,
Unnumber'd evils call for thy redress.

Seest thou afar yon solitary thorn,

Whose aged limbs the heath's wild winds have torn?

While yet to cheer the homeward shepherd's eye,
A few seem straggling in the evening sky!
Not many suns have hasten'd down the day,

Or blushing moons immersed in clouds their way, Since there, a scene that stain'd their sacred light,

With horror stopp'd a felon in his flight;
A babe just born that signs of life exprest,
Lay naked o'er the mother's lifeless breast.
The pitying robber, conscious that, pursued,
He had no time to waste, yet stood and view'd;
To the next cot the trembling infant bore,
And gave a part of what he stole before;
Nor known to him the wretches were, nor dear,
He felt as man, and dropp'd a human tear.

Far other treatment she who breathless lay,
Found from a viler animal of prey.

Worn with long toil on many a painful road, That toil increased by nature's growing load, When evening brought the friendly hour of rest, And all the mother throng'd about her breast, The ruffian officer opposed her stay, And, cruel, bore her in her pangs away, So far beyond the town's last limits drove, That to return were hopeless, had she strove, Abandon'd there-with famine, pain and cold, And anguish, she expired-the rest I've told.

"Now let me swear. For by my soul's last sigh, That thief shall live, that overseer shall die."

Too late!-his life the generous robber paid, Lost by that pity which his steps delay'd! No soul-discerning Mansfield sat to hear, No Hertford bore his prayer to mercy's ear; No liberal justice first assign'd the gaol,

Or urged, as Camplin would have urged, his tale.