Cheer'd by the milder beam, the sprightly youth
Speeds to the well-known pool, whose crystal depth
A sandy bottom shows. Awhile he stands
Gazing the inverted landscape, half afraid
To meditate the blue profound below;
Then plunges headlong down the circling flood.
His ebon tresses, and his rosy cheek,

Instant emerge and through the obedient wave,
At each short breathing by his lip repell'd,
With arms and legs according well, he makes,
As humour leads, an easy-winding path;
While from his polish'd sides a dewy light
Effuses on the pleased spectators round.

This is the purest exercise of health.

The kind refresher of the Summer heats :
Nor, when cold Winter keens the brightening flood,
Would I, weak-shivering, linger on the brink.

Thus life redoubles, and is oft preserved

By the bold swimmer, in the swift elapse
Of accident disastrous.

AUTUMN.

ROWN'D with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,
While Autumn nodding o'er the yellow plain
Comes jovial on, the Doric reed once more,
Well pleased, I tune. Whate'er the wintry frost
Nitrous prepared, the various-blossom'd Spring
Put in white promise forth, and Summer suns
Concocted strong, rush boundless now to view,
Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme.

*

*

*

*

Hence from the busy, joy-resounding fields

In cheerful error let us tread the maze

Of Autumn, unconfined; and taste, revived,

The breath of orchard big with bending fruit.
Obedient to the breeze and beating ray,
From the deep-loaded bough a mellow shower
Incessant melts away. The juicy pear
Lies in a soft profusion scatter'd round.
A various sweetness swells the gentle race,
By Nature's all-refining hand prepared;
Of temper'd sun, and water, earth, and air,
In ever-changing composition mix'd.
Such, falling frequent through the chiller night,
The fragrant stores, the wide projected heaps
Of apples, which the lusty-handed year,
Innumerous, o'er the blushing orchard shakes.

R

WINTER.

EE, Winter comes to rule the varied year,
Sullen and sad, with all his rising train—
Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these
my theme,

These—that exalt the soul to solemn thought
And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred
glooms;

Congenial horrors, hail: with frequent foot,
Pleased have I, in my cheerful morn of life,
When nursed by careless solitude I lived,
And sung of nature with unceasing joy;
Pleased have I wander'd through your rough
domain,

Trod the pure virgin snows, myself as pure;
Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent
burst,

Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brew'd
In the grim evening sky.

*

Nature! great parent! whose unceasing hand
Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year,
How mighty, how majestic are thy works!
With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul,
That sees astonish'd, and astonish'd sings!
Ye, too, ye winds! that now begin to blow
With boisterous sweep, I raise my voice to you.
Where are your stores, ye powerful beings, say,
Where your aerial magazines reserved

To swell the brooding terrors of the storm?
In what far distant region of the sky,

Hush'd in deep silence, sleep ye when 'tis calm?

*

*

*

*

'Tis done; dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year. How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!

How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends

His desolate domain. Behold, fond man!

See here thy pictured life! Pass some few years
Thy flowering spring, thy summer's ardent strength,
And sober autumn fading into age,

The pale concluding winter comes at last

The shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are fled
Those dreams of greatness? those unsolid hopes

Of happiness? those longings after fame?
Those restless cares? those busy bustling days?

Those gay-spent festive nights? those veering thoughts,
Lost between good and ill, that shared thy life?

All now are vanish'd; virtue sole survives,
Immortal, never-failing friend of man—
His guide to happiness on high.

THOMSON.

ON MUSIC.

HERE are few who have not felt the charms of music, and acknowledged its expressions to be intelligible to the heart. It is a language of delightful sensations, that is far more eloquent than words: it breathes to the ear the clearest intimations; but how it was learned, to what origin we owe it, or what is the meaning of some of its most affecting strains, we know not.

We feel plainly that music touches and gently agitates the agreeable and sublime passions; that it wraps us in melancholy, and elevates us to joy; that it dissolves and inflames; that it melts us into tenderness, and rouses into rage: but its strokes are so fine and delicate, that, like a tragedy, even the passions that are wounded please; its sorrows are charming, and its rage heroic and delightful. As people feel the particular passions with different degrees of force, their taste of harmony must proportionably vary. Music, then, is a language directed to the passions; but the rudest passions put on a new nature, and become pleasing in harmony: let me add, also, that it awakens some passions which we perceive not in ordinary life. Particularly the most elevated sensation of music arises from a confused perception of ideal or visionary beauty and rapture, which is sufficiently perceivable to fire the imagination, but not clear enough to become an object of knowledge. This shadowy beauty the mind attempts, with a languishing curiosity, to collect into a distinct object of view and comprehension; but it sinks and escapes, like the dissolving ideas of a delightful dream, that are neither within the reach of the memory, nor yet totally fled. The noblest charm of music, then, though real and affecting, seems too confused and fluid to be collected into a distinct idea.

Harmony is always understood by the crowd, and almost always mistaken by musicians. The present Italian taste for music is exactly correspondent to the taste for tragi-comedy, that about a century ago gained ground upon the stage. The musicians of the present day are charmed at the union they form between the grave and the fantastic, and at the surprising transitions they make between extremes, while every hearer who has the least remainder of the taste of nature left, is shocked at the strange jargon. If the same taste should prevail in painting, we must soon expect to see the woman's head, a horse's body, and a fish's tail, united by soft gradations, greatly admired at our public exhibitions. Musical gentlemen should take particular care to preserve in its full vigour and sensibility their original natural taste, which alone feels and discovers the true beauty of music.

If Milton, Shakspeare, or Dryden had been born with the same genius and inspiration for music as for poetry, and had passed through the practical part without corrupting the natural taste, or blending with it any prepossession in favour of sleights and dexterities of hand, then would their notes be tuned to passions and to sentiments as natural and expressive as the tones and modulations of the voice in discourse. The music and the thought would not make different expressions; the hearers would only think impetuously; and the effect of the music would be to give the ideas