May I govern my passions with an absolute sway; And grow wiser and better as my strength wears away, In a country town, by a murmuring brook, May I govern my passions, &c. With Horace and Petrarch, and one or two more With a pudding on Sundays, and stout humming liquor, With a hidden reserve of good Burgundy wine, To drink the king's health as oft as we dine. undaunted may I face my last day! With a courage For he govern'd his passions with an absolute sway; This beautiful contemplative Song is by DR. WALTER POPE, half-brother to Bishop Wilkins, published by him in 1693, six years after he had resigned his professorship of astronomy in MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 97 Gresham College. He was author of several humorous ballads, and of many serious treatises in prose, which are enumerated in Dr. Ward's Lives of the Gresham Professors. wwww QUEEN MARY'S FAREWELL TO FRANCE. AH! pleasant land of France, farewell; The ship which parts our loves, conveys I leave with thee, dear France, to prove And bring the other to thy mind. This delicate little sonnet is given by RITSON, from the original French of the thrice unfortunate and accomplished Mary Queen of Scots, apparently written by her upon leaving France, after the death of her first husband Francis II. Mary's early troubles are aptly delineated by Hogg, in the following couplets: In one short year, her hopes all cross'd, A parent, husband, kingdom lost! And all ere eighteen summers shed Their honours o'er her royal head. Lovers on their stars must wait, Why, oh why, should I despair? Why, oh why, should I despair? The above is by LORD CUTTS, a soldier of most hardy bravery in King William's wars. In 1701, he was colonel of the Coldstream Guards, when Steel was indebted to him for his military commission, and in gratitude inscribed to him his first work, “The Christian Hero." On the accession of Queen Anne, he was made lieutenant-general of the forces in Holland; commanderin-chief of the forces in Ireland, under the Duke of Ormond, in 1704, and afterwards one of the Lord Justices of that kingdom, to keep him out of the way of action, a circumstance which broke his heart. He died at Dublin, about the year 1706. Several copies of verses, and eleven songs, are all his published remains. In page 29, part of a sentence in note to "Whence comes my love," has unfortunately been omitted, which ought to have stood thus:-From a M. S. of JOHN HARRINGTON's, dated 1564, and inserted into the Nugæ Antiquæ, a Miscellaneous Collection of original papers in prose and verse, written in the reigns of Henry VIII. Edward VI. Mary, Elizabeth, James I. &c. by Sir John Harrington, the translator of Ariosto, and others who lived in these times, 12mo. Robinson and Roberts, 1767. This John Harrington, &c. (as is continued in note). SECTION II. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, BY SIR WILLIAM MURE, KNIGHT, OF ROWALLAN, AUTHOR OF "THE TRVE CRVCIFIXE. WITH BIOGRAPHICAL & RELATIVE NOTICES. BY JOHN FULLarton, Esq. |