Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains and height of passion For the fair disdainful dame. But O! what art can teach, Notes inspiring holy love, Notes that wing their heavenly ways Orpheus could lead the savage race, But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher : GRAND CHORUS. As from the power of sacred lays And So when the last and dreadful hour JOHN DRYDEN.1 1 JOHN DRYDEN, the most famous of the poets of the Restoraion, was born in 1631, and educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was bred a Puritan, but went VERSION OF THE NINETEENTH PSALM I. THE spacious firmament on high, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim: Th' unwearied sun from day to day Does his Creator's power display, And publishes to every land The work of an Almighty hand. II. Soon as the evening shades prevail, Whilst all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets, in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole. III. What though, in solemn silence, all over to Charles II. at the Restoration and became a playwright, essayist, and poet. He was received into favor at court, and was made poet-laureate in 1668. He wrote many plays, all of which are now deservedly forgotten, and some prose essays. His fame rests on his shorter poems, his satires of great force and brilliancy, and his translation of Virgil. He died May 1, 170C and was buried in Westminster Abbey. In reason's ear they all rejoice, JOSEPH ADDISON.1 THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL. VITAL Spark of heavenly flame, O the pain, the bliss of dying! Hark! they whisper; angels say, Sister spirit, come away. Steals my senses, shuts my sight, 1 JOSEPH ADDISON, the eldest son of Lancelot Addison, Dean of Lichfield, was born at Milston, Wiltshire, in 1672. He was educated at the Charter House, and afterwards at Oxford, where he had a high reputation for classical scholarship. He at once ventured into literature, and a successful poem gained him a pension from King William. He then travelled abroad, and on his return in 1704 attracted the notice of Queen Anne's government by a poem on the battle of Blenheim, entitled The Campaign. The favor thus gained soon bore fruit. He was made Commissioner of Appeals and under Secretary of State, and ably defended with his pen the Whig ministry. In 1716 he married the Countess of Warwick, and died at Holland House, London, in the forty-eighth year of his age. Addison wrote the tragedy of Cato, and some minor poems, but his literary fame rests on the essays contributed to the Spectator and Tatler. These essays, abounding in wit, humor, and refined criticism, give Addison bis position as one of the first of English prose writers. Drowns my spirits, draws my breath? The world recedes; it disappears; Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O death! where is thy sting? ALEXANDER POPE.' SOLITUDE.2 HAPPY the man whose wish and care Content to breathe his native air In his own ground. 1 ALEXANDER POPE, the son of a merchant, was born in London in May, 1688. He was deformed in body, and as his parents were Roman Catholics he was educated at home or at private schools. He was a boy of great precocity and began at an early period his literary career, to which he was wholly devoted. All his important works, including, of course, the translations of Homer, are in verse. Some are poems on fashionable society, others philosophical and critical, and others still are satire, in which Pope excelled. In the various fields of original poetry which he entered he has hardly ever been surpassed, and was, with the exception of Swift, the greatest of the remarkable group of literary men known as the school of Queen Anne. Pope passed his life quietly at Twickenham, in the neighborhood of London, where he saw the best society of the time, and rarried on the bitter paper warfare into which his vanity and irritable temper constantly led him. He died at Twickenham In 1744. 2 Written when the author was about twelve years old. Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Whose flocks supply him with attire, Whose trees in summer yield him shade, In winter fire. Bless'd who can unconcern'dly find Hours, days, and years slide soft away, Sound sleep by night; study and ease Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie. ALEXANDER POPE. TO A CHILD OF QUALITY.1 LORDS, knights, and squires, the numerous band, My pen among the rest I took, Lest those bright eyes that cannot read Should dart their kindling fires, and look The power they have to be obey'd. 1 Five years old, 1704; the author then forty |