In the fixteenth Elegy, the Poet introduces a most striking and uncommon picture. He exhibits the ftrongeft conflict between love and pride, that can poffibly be imagined, in the person of a Lady whofe affections had been fixed on an inferior object; in confequence of which her reafon became the victim of her haughtiness. Moft of thefe Elegies convey fome moral inftruction, and this cannot be without a proper tendency:

On Sarum's plain I met a wand'ring Fair;

The look of forrow, lovely still she bore:

.Loofe flow'd the foft redundance of her hair,
And, on her brow, a flow'ry wreath she wore.
Oft ftooping as she stray'd, the cull'd the pride
Of ev'ry plain; the pillag'd ev'ry grove!
The fading chaplet daily the fupply'd,

And fill her hand fome various garland wove.
Erroneous fancy fhap'd her wild attire ;

From Bethlem's walls the poor lympatic ftray'd;
Seem'd with her air her accent to confpire,

When, as wild fancy taught her, thus fhe faid.
"Hear me, dear Youth! oh hear an hapless Maid,
Sprung from the scepter'd line of ancient Kings!
Scorn'd by the world, I ask thy tender aid;
Thy gentle voice fhall whisper kinder things.
The world is frantic-fly the race profane-
Nor I, nor you, fhall its compaffion move;
Come friendly let us wander, and complain,
And tell me, shepherd! haft thou feen my love?
My love is young-but other loves are young;
And other loves are fair, and fo is mine;
An air divine difclofes whence he sprung;
He is my love, who boasts that air divine.

No vulgar Damon robs me of my reft,

Fanthe liftens to no vulgar vow;

A Prince, from Gods defcended, fires her breaft;
A brilliant crown distinguishes his brow.

What, fhall I ftain the glories of my race?

More clear, more lovely bright than Hefper's beam?
The porc'lain pure with vulgar dirt debase ?
Or mix with puddle the pellucid ftream?
See thro' thefe veins the faphire current shine!
'Twas Jove's own nectar gave th' etherial hue;
Can base plebeian forms contend with mine?
Display the lovely white, or match the blue?,
The Painter ftrove to trace its azure ray :

He changed his colours, and in vain he ftrove;
He frown'd-I (miling view'd the faint effay;
Poor Youth! he little knew it flow'd from Jove.
REV. May, 1764.

Ce

Pitying

Pitying his toil, the wond'rous truth I told
How am'rous Jove trepann'd a mortal fair;
How thro' the race the generous current roll'd, L

And mocks the Poet's art, and Painter's care.
Yes, from the Gods, from earliest Saturn, sprung
Our facred race; thro' Demigods, convey'd;
And he, ally'd to Phoebus, ever young,

My god-like boy, muft wed their duteous maid,
Oft, when a mortal vow profanes my ear,

My fire's dread fury murmurs thro' the sky;
And thou'd I yield-his inftant rage appears,
He darts th' uplifted vengeance and I die.
Have you not heard unwonted thunders roll!
Have you not feen more horrid lightnings glare!
'Twas then a vulgar love enfiar'd my foul;

'Twas then-I hardly fcap'd the fatal fnare.
'Twas then a peifant pour'd his amorous vow,
All as liften'd to his vulgar strain ;→→→→→
Yet fuch his beauty-wou'd my birth allow,
Dear were the youth, and blissful were the plain.
But,oh!. I faint! why waftes my vernal bloom,
In fruitless fearches ever doom'd to rove ?
My nightly dreams the toilfome path refume,
And I fhall die-before I find my love.
When laft I flept, methought, my ravish'd eye,
On diftant heaths his radiant form furvey'd ;
Tho' night's thick clouds encompass'd all the sky,
The gems that bound his brow, difpell'd the shade.
O how this bofom kindled at the fight!

Led by their beams I urg'd the pleasing chace
Till, on a fudden, thefe with-held their light
All, all things envy the fublime embrace,
But now no more--behind the diftant grove,
Wanders my deftin'd youth, and chides my ftay
See, fee, he grafps the fteel-forbear, my love→→
Janthe comes; thy Princess haftes

away."

Scornful the fpoke, and heedlefs of reply
The lovely maniac bounded o'er the plain;
The piteous victim of an angry sky!

Ah me! the victim of her proud difdain!

But the laft Elegy, which defcribes the melancholy event of a licentious amour, is, both with regard to the fubject and the manner of execution, poffibly, the most affecting and pathetic poem that ever was written. We cannot deny our Readers the painful pleasure of perufing the whole :

Why mourns my friend! why weeps his downcaft eye?
That eye where mirth, where fancy us'd to fhine?'

Thy cheerful meads reprove that fwelling figh;
Spring ne'er enamel'd fairer meads than thine..

Art

Art thou not lodg'd in fortune's warm embrace ?
Wert thou not form'd by nature's partial care?
Bleft in thy fong, and bleit in ev'ry grace

That wins the friend, or that enchants the fair?
Damon, faid he, thy partial praife restrain;

Not Damon's friendship can my peace restore;
Alas! his very praise awakes my pain,

And d my poor wounded bofom bleeds the more,
For oh! that nature on my birth had frown'd!
Or fortune fix'd me to fome lowly cell!
Then had my bofom 'fcap'd this fatal wound,
Nor had I bid thefe vernal fweets, farewel.
But led by fortune's hand, her darling child,
My youth her vain licentious blifs admir'd;
In fortune's train the fyren flatt'ry fmil'd,
And rafhly hallow'd all her Queen infpir'd.
Of folly ftudious, ev'n of vices vain,

Ah vices! gilded by the rich and gay!
I chas'd the guilelefs daughters of the plain,
Nor dropt the chace, till Jeffy was my prey.
Poor artless Maid! to ftain thy fpotlefs name,
Expence, and art, and toil, united strove;
To lure a breast that felt the purest flame,

Suftain'd by virtue, but betray'd by love.
School'd in the fcience of love's mazy wiles,
I cloath'd each feature with affected fcorn;
I fpoke of jealous doubts, and fickle fmiles,

And, feigning, left her anxious and forlorn,
Then, while the fancy'd rage alarm'd her care,,
Warm to deny, and zealous to difprove;
I bade my words the wonted foftnefs wear,
And feiz'd the minute of returning love.
To thee, my Damon, dare I paint the rest?
Will yet thy love a candid ear incline?
Affur'd that virtue, by misfortune preft,

Feels not the sharphefs of a pang like mine.
Nine envious moons matur'd her growing fhame;
Ere while to flaunt it in the face of day;
When fcorn'd of virtue, ftigmatiz'd by fame,
Low at my feet defponding Jeffy lay.
"Henry, the faid, by thy dear form fubdu'd,
See the fad reliques of a nymph undone !
I find, I find this rifing fob renew'd:
I figh in fhades, and ficken at the fun.

Amid the dreary gloom of night, I cry,

When will the morn's once pleafing fceties return? Yet what can morn's returning ray fupply,

But foes that triumph, or but friends that mourn!

Alas! no more that joyous morn appears
That led the tranquil hours of fpotless fame;
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F

For I have steep'd a father's couch in tears,
And ting'd a mother's glowing cheek with shame.
The vocal birds that raise their matin ftrain,

The fportive lambs, increase my penfive moan;
All seem to chafe me from the chearful plain,
And talk of truth and innocence alone.
If thro' the garden's flow'ry tribes I ftray,
Where bloom the jafmins that could once allure,
Hope not to find delight in us, they fay,
For we are spotlefs, Jeffy, we are pure.
Ye flow'rs! that well reproach a nymph fo frail,
Say, could ye with my virgin fame compare?
The brightest bud that fcents the vernal gale,
Was not fo fragrant, and was not so fair.
Now the grave old alarm the gentler young;
And all my fame's abhorr'd contagion flee;
Trembles each lip, and faulters every tongue,
That bids the morn propitious fmile on me.
Thus, for your fake, I fhun each human eye;
I bid the fweets of blooming youth adieu;
To die I languish, but I dread to die,

Leit my fad fate fhou'd nourifh pangs for you.
Raife me from earth; the pains of want remove,
And let me filent seek fome friendly fhore;
There only, banish'd from the form I love,
My weeping virtue fhall relapfe no more.
Be but my friend; I ask no dearer name;

Be fuch the meed of fome more artful fair;
Nor could it heal my peace, or chase my fhame;
That pity gave what love refus'd to fhare.
Force not my tongue to ask its scanty bread;
Nor hurl thy Jeffy to the vulgar crew;
Not fuch the parent's board at which I fed!
Not fuch the precept from his lips I drew!
Haply, when age has filver'd o'er my hair,
Malice may learn to fcorn fo mean a spoil;
Envy may flight a face no longer fair;

And pity, welcome, to my native foil."

She fpoke-nor was I born of favage race;
Nor could thefe hands a niggard boon affign;

Grateful fhe clafp'd me in a laft embrace,

And vow'd to waste her life in pray'rs for mine.

I faw her foot the lofty bark afcend;

I saw her breaft with every paffion heave;

I left her-torn from every earthly friend;
Oh! my hard bofom, which could bear to leave!
Brief let me be; the fatal ftorm arose;

The billows rag'd; the pilot's art was vain ;

But

O'er the tall maft the circling furges clofe,

My Jeffy-floats upon the watʼry plain!
And-fee my youth's impetuous fires decay;
Seek not to stop reflection's bitter tear ;
But warn the frolic, and inftruct the gay,
From Jeffy floating on her wat'ry bier!

Of the reft of Mr. Shenftone's poems, and his profe-writings, we shall give an account in our next.

De Dyfenteria Commentarius, Auctore Marco Akenfide, Coll." Med. Londin. Socio, R. S. S. et Magnæ Britanniæ Reginæ Medico. 8vo. 2s. DodЛley.

T

HE learned Author of this Commentary, on the Dyfen

tery or Bloody Flux, confiders the difeafe in four chapters. The first relates to the hiftory, and includes the defcription, of it. The fecond treats of its cure. The third, of its caufes; and the laft, confiders the rationale of the action of Ipecacoanha on the fubjects of the diftemper. As we must suppose the Doctor intended to give the public fomething new on this occafion, and not to compofe his Commentary principally from his reading on this disease, we fhall felect from it a little of what feems more particular and peculiar to himself; and this the rather, as the original may not be very generally intelligible to all Practitioners in phyfic, who attend perfons in a Dyfentery.

He thinks, then, contrary to a pretty common opinion, that the bloody flux fhould very rarely be claffed among acute diseafes, from its being fo feldom attended with a fever: and this he observes to have been the judgment rather of the ancient than the modern Physicians; admitting Sydenham, Boerhaave and Mead, to have entertained a very different opinion from him in this refpect. Nevertheless, he affirms, after a profeffion of much experience and practice in this disease, in St. Thomas's hofpital, that he has fcarcely feen one out of ten perfons in a bloody flux, who has had it preceded by, or attended with, a fever: fo great a majority of them, having rather low, and, as it were, infebrile fymptoms, inftead of those accompanying local inflammations and the great evacuation or flux, when left to ittelf, continuing for fo long a term as two, or even three, months, which may properly denominate it a chronical difeafe. He admits, however, that in perfons of a hot conftitution, the bloody flux is fomtimes attended with a fever; and thinks it may be diftinguifhed, on this account, like a rheumatifm, into an acute and chronical Dyfentery, notwithstanding its proving much oftener the latter than the former.

The next notion, in which this Gentleman's continual ob

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fervation