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THE following Imitation of Shakespeare was one of our
Author's first attempts in poetry, made when he was very
young: it helped to amuse the solitude of a winter past in
a wild romantic country; and what is rather particular,
was just finished when Mr. Thomson's celebrated poem
upon the same subject appeared. Mr. Thomson soon bear-
ing of it bad the curiosity to procure a copy by the means of
a common acquaintance. He shewed it to his poetical friends
Mr. Mallet, Mr. Aaron Hill, and Dr. Young, who it
seems did great honour to it, and the first mentioned gentle-
man wrote to one of his friends at Edinburgh, desiring the
Author's leave to publish it,a request too flattering to youth-
ful vanity to be resisted: but Mr. Mallet altered bis mind,
and this little piece has hitherto remained unpublished.
The other Imitations of Shakespeare happen to have been saved
out of the ruins of an unfinished tragedy on the story of
Tereus and Philomela, attempted upon an irregular and
extravagant plan at an age much too early for such
achievements: however they are bere exhibited for the
sake of such guests as may like a little repast of scraps.

IMITATIONS

OF SHAKESPEARE.

Now Summer with her wanton court is gone
To revel on the south side of the world,

And flaunt and frolic out the livelong day,
While Winter rising pale from northern seas
Shakes from his hoary locks the drizzling rheum;
A blast so shrewd makes the tall-body'd pines 6
Unsinew'd bend, and heavy-paced bears
Sends growling to their savage tenements.

Now blows the surly north, and chills thro❜out
The stiff'ning regions, while by stronger charms
Than Circe e'er or fell Medea brew'd

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16

Each brook that wont to prattle to its banks
Lies all bestill'd and wedg'd betwixt its banks,
Nor moves the wither'd reeds; and the rash flood
That from the mountains held its headstrong course,
Bury'd in livid sheets of vaulting ice,
Seen thro' the shameful breaches, idly creeps
To pay a scanty tribute to the ocean.
What wonder? when the floating wilderness
That scorns our miles, and calls Geography
A shallow pryer, from whose unsteady mirror
The high-hung pole surveys his dancing locks,
When this still-raving deep lies mute and dead,
Nor heaves its swelling bosom to the winds.
The surges baited by the fierce north-east,
Tossing with fretful spleen their angry heads
To roar and rush together,

Ev'n in the foam of all their madness struck
To monumental ice stand all astride

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25

The rocks they wash'd so late. Such execution, 30 So stern, so sudden, wrought the grisly aspect

Of terrible Medusa ere young Perseus

With his keen sabre cropp'd her horrid head,
And laid her serpents rowling on the dust,

40

When wand'ring thro' the woods shefrown'd to stone
Their
savage tenants just as the foaming lion 36
Sprung furious on his prey her speedier pow'r
Outrun his haste; no time to languish in,
But fix'd in that fierce attitude he stands
Like Rage in marble.-Now portly Argosies
Lie wedg'd'twixt Neptune's ribs. The bridg'd abysm
Has chang'd our ships to horses; the swift bark
Yields to the heavy wagon and the cart,
That now from isle to isle maintain the trade,
And where the surface-hunting dolphin led
Her sportive young is now an area fit
For the wild schoolboy's pastime.

45

Mean-time the ev'ning skies, crusted with ice, Shifting from red to black their weighty skirts, Hang mournful o'er the hills, and stealing night 50 Rides the bleak puffing winds, that seem to spit Their foam sparse thro' the welkin, which is nothing If not beheld. Anon the burden'd Heav'n Shakes from its ample sieve the boulted snow, That flutt'ring down besprinkles the sad trees 55 In mockery of leaves, piles up the hills To monstrous altitude, and chokes to the lips, The deep impervious vales that yawn as low. As to the centre, Nature's vasty breaches,

nose

While all the pride of men and mortal things 60
Lies whelm'd in heav'n's white ruins.-
The shiv'ring clown digs his obstructed way
Thro' the snow-barricado'd cottage door,
And muffled in his homespun plaid encounters
65
With livid cheeks and rheum-distilling
The morning's sharp and scourging breath to count
His starving flock, whose number's all too short
To make the goodly sum of yester-night:
Part deep ingurgitated, part yet struggling,
With their last pantings melt themselves a grave 70
In Winter's bosom, which yields not to the touch
Of the pale languid crescet of this world,
That now with lean and churlish husbandry
Yields heartlessly the remnants of his prime,
And like most spendthrifts starves his latter days
For former rankness. He with bleary eye
Blazons his own disgrace, the harness'd waste
Rebellious to his blunt defeated shafts,
And idly strikes the chalky mountains' tops
That rise to kiss the welkin's ruddy lips,
Where all the rash young bullies of the air
Mount their quick slender penetrating wings,
Whipping the frost-burnt villagers to the bones,
And growing with their motion mad and furious,
Till swoln to tempests they outrage the thunder,
Winnow the chaffy snow, and mock the skies 86
Ev'n with their own artillery retorted,

Tear

up

and throw th'accumulated hills

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80

I

Into the vallies: and as rude hurricanes
Discharged from the wind-swoln cheeks of heav'n
Buoy up the swilling skirts of Araby's
Inhospitable wilds,

And roll the dusty desert thro' the skies,
Choking the liberal air, and smoth'ring

Whole caravans at once, such havoc spreads
This war of heaven and earth, such sudden rain
Visits their houseless citizens, that shrink
In the false shelter of the hills together,

95

And hear the tempest howling o'er their heads 99 That by and by o'erwhelms them. The very birds, Those few that troop'd not with the chiming tribe Of am'rous Summer, quit their ruffian element, And with domestic tameness hop and flutter Within the roofs of persecuting man,

(Grown hospitable by like sense of suff'rance) 105
Whither the hinds, the debt of the day discharg'd,
From kiln or barn repairing, shut the door
On surly Winter, crowd the clean-swept hearth
And cheerful shining fire, and doff the time,
The whilst the maids their twirling spindles ply
With musty legends and ear-pathing tales
Of giants and black necromantic bards,
Of air-built castles, feats of madcap knights,
And every hollow fiction of romance,
And as their rambling humour leads them talk
Of prodigies and things of dreadful utt'rance
That set them all agape, rouse up their hair,