Part 93 (1/2)

RICHARD GLOVER From 'Leonidas,' Book XII Admiral Hosier's Ghost

WILLIAM WHITEHEAD Variety

WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE c.u.mnor Hall The Mariner's Wife

LORD NUGENT Ode to Mankind

JOHN LOGAN The Lovers Written in a Visit to the Country in Autumn Complaint of Nature

THOMAS BLACKLOCK The Author's Picture Ode to Aurora, on Melissa's Birthday

MISS ELLIOT AND MRS c.o.c.kBURN The Flowers of the Forest The Same

SIR WILLIAM JONES A Persian Song of Hafiz

SAMUEL BISHOP To Mrs Bishop To the Same

SUSANNA BLAMIRE The Nabob What Ails this Heart o' mine?

JAMES MACPHERSON Ossian's Address to the Sun Desolation of Balclutha Fingal and the Spirit of Loda Address to the Moon Fingal's Spirit-home The Cave

WILLIAM MASON Epitaph on Mrs Mason An Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers

JOHN LOWE Mary's Dream

JOSEPH WARTON Ode to Fancy

MISCELLANEOUS Song Verses, copied from the Window of an obscure Lodging-house, in the neighbourhood of London The Old Bachelor Careless Content A Pastoral Ode to a Tobacco-pipe Away! let nought to Love displeasing Richard Bentley's sole Poetical Composition Lines addressed to Pope

INDEX

SPECIMENS, WITH MEMOIRS, OF THE LESS-KNOWN BRITISH POETS.

THIRD PERIOD.

FROM DRYDEN TO COWPER.

SIR CHARLES SEDLEY.

Sedley was one of those characters who exert a personal fascination over their own age without leaving any works behind them to perpetuate the charm to posterity. He was the son of Sir John Sedley of Aylesford, in Kent, and was born in 1639. When the Restoration took place he repaired to London, and plunged into all the licence of the time, shedding, however, over the putrid pool the sheen of his wit, manners, and genius.

Charles was so delighted with him, that he is said to have asked him whether he had not obtained a patent from Nature to be Apollo's viceroy.

He cracked jests, issued lampoons, wrote poems and plays, and, despite some great blunders, was universally admired and loved. When his comedy of 'Bellamira' was acted, the roof fell in, and a few, including the author, were slightly injured. When a parasite told him that the fire of the play had blown up the poet, house and all, Sedley replied, 'No; the play was so heavy that it broke down the house, and buried the poet in his own rubbish.' Latterly he sobered down, entered parliament, attended closely to public business, and became a determined opponent of the arbitrary measures of James II. To this he was stimulated by a personal reason. James had seduced Sedley's daughter, and made her Countess of Dorchester. 'For making my daughter a countess,' the father said, 'I have helped to make his daughter' (Mary, Princess of Orange,) 'a queen.'