33G ANNUAL REGISTER, 1800. 



benevolence towards his fellow- 

 creatures, which characterised his 

 familiar conversation. Sometimes 

 his thoughts in composition glanced 

 upon the subject he designed to 

 avoid; and nothing can afford a 

 more striking picture of himself, 

 than the following lines in his poem 

 on Retirement : 



Look where he comes — in this embower'd 



alcove 

 Stand close conceal'd, and see a statue 



move : 

 Lips busy, and eyes fix'd, foot falling slow, 

 Arms banging idly down, hands clasp'd 



below, 

 .nterpiet to the marking eye distress. 

 Such as its symptoms can alone express, 

 That tongue is silent now ; that silent 



tongue 

 Could argue once, could jest or join the 



song, 

 Could give advice, could censure, or com- 

 mend. 

 Or charm the sorrows of a drooping 



friend. 

 Renounc'd alike its office and itsspnrt, 

 Its brisker and its graver strains fall short; 

 Both fall beneath a fever's secret sway. 

 And, like a summer brook, are pastaway. 

 This is a sight for Pity to peruse. 

 Till she resemble faintly what she views, 

 Till Sympathy contract a kindred pain, 

 Pierc'd with the woes that she laments in 



vain. 



The connection of this passage is 

 highly beautiful, but it is too large 

 for quotation. It closes with ad- 

 vice to the pitiable sufferer (which, 

 alas ! our deceased friend could not 

 himself exemplify) to seek the favour 

 of God, as the only balm for a 

 wounded spirit. At times, indeed, 

 after more than twelve years of un- 

 interrupted despair, some transient 

 changes of his mental sensations ad- 

 mitted a gleam of hope, of which 

 he immediately availed himself for a 

 renewal of intercourse with God. 

 He prayed in private as before his 

 affliction, and even his slumbers 



were thus delightfully occupied.—- 

 He has spoken of such nights, com- 

 pared with those he usually endured, 

 as passed on a bed of rose-leaves- 

 instead of fiery tortures, and as a 

 transition from hell to heaven. These 

 lucid intervals w^ere unhappily so 

 short, that he never resumed his at- 

 tendance on public worship. The 

 most tolerable days that he spent in 

 the customary state of his mind, he 

 has described to me, as begun with 

 traces of horror, left by the most 

 frightful dreams. The forenoon 

 being employed in composition, be- 

 came gradually less distressing. Be- 

 fore dinner he usually walked two 

 hours ; and the air, the rural pro- 

 spects and muscular exercise, con- 

 tributed to his farther relief. If at 

 dinner, and during the afternoon^ 

 he had the company of an intimate 

 friend or two, which was frequent- 

 ly the case during the last ten years 

 that he lived in this neighbourhood, 

 their conversation seemed to afford 

 the principal alleviation to his habi- 

 tual burden. The evening was 

 commonly employed in reading 

 aloud to some friend who resided 

 with him ; for such was the care of 

 God over this amiable sufferer, that 

 he never was left without some 

 companion, whose heart the Lord 

 disposed to sacrifice every comfort 

 for his preservation and relief. But 

 as night approached, his gloom of 

 mind regularly increased; and when 

 he went to his bed, it was not to 

 rest, but to be again harassed in 

 slumber with the terrifying images 

 of a bewildered fancy, neither re- 

 strained by the control of reason, nor 

 diverted by external objects. 



Of the general condition of his 

 mind, during the last seven years 

 of his abode in this vicinity, which 

 certainly were the most tranquil that 



