The scene is laid on the banks where the two rivers of the Wauchope and Ewes join the Esk; on the banks of the former was anciently a castle belonging to the knights templars, on the ruins of which was built the house at which Mr. Mickle's father resided, and where the poet was born. It was composed at the request of Mr. Ballantyne, and was to have been set to music by Mr. commissioner Balmaine, of the Scotch excise, had not death prevented him. Both these gentlemen were born in this district.

2 The seat of John Maxwell, esq. author of the celebrated Essay on Tune; Deansbanks, so called from the dean of the knights templars.

His snow-white breast was stain'd with gore,

A cruel sword his bosom tore.

Say, with his parting vital flame,
Did he sigh Ophelia's name?
Was he constant, still the same?
Echo sigh'd "Ophelia's name."

When in honour's bed he lay,
And breath'd his gallant soul away,
Ye gentler spirits of the air,
Why was not Ophelia there?
Echo answer'd her despair,

Why was not Ophelia there?"
While the full Moon's paly ray
Sleeping on the hill-side lay,
Thus to Echo through the glade
The lovely maniac talk'd and stray'd:
Straight on fancy's wild wing borne,
By the glimpse of op'ning morn
She saw-or thought she saw, her love
Lie bleeding..

.....

COME, gentle peace, on ev'ry breathing gale,
O come, and guard the slumbers of the vale;
Awake, gay mirth and glee, with playful wile,
Wake with the morn, and o'er the landscape smile!

"UPBRAID me not, nor thankless fly The grace I would bestow;" (Sir Cadwal sat in window high, King Edward stood below.)

3 The skirts of this very picturesque mountain form a bank for the Esk and the Waucope, and are covered with a beautiful and romantic wood.

HENCE, ye vain nymphs, that in th' Aonian shade Boast to inspire the fancy's raptur'd dream, Far other powers my wounded soul invade,

And lead me by the banks of other stream. Ye, that beheld when Salem's bard divine

On Chebar's willows hung his silent lyre, While Judah's yoke, and Zion's ruin'd shrine, Did ev'ry thought with bleeding woe inspire, From Siloe's banks or Carmel's lonely dells,

O come, ye angels of the melting heart; O come, with ev'ry gen'rous pang that dwells In friendship's bitterest tender bleeding smart! Still to my eyes the dear lov'd form appears,

But ah! how chang'd; the prey of fell disease! Cold gleams the eye, the cheek pale languor wears, And weakness trembles in the wasted knees. Ah! what dear plans with future action fraught, With beauteous prospect rose in friendship's eye: And must, oh Heaven, can nature bear the thought? Must these dear views like morning shadows fly? Yes, nature weeps, and virtue joins her flame,

And, mourning o'er the woes herself inspir'd, Repeats the friend's, the brother's, sacred name, And fondly views each scene herself desir'd.

Yes, friendship cannot quit her darling field,

Still bids each hope display its fairest bloom, Then sick'n ng sees each promis'd joy withheld, And sink with Cassio to the dreary tomb.

ALMADA HILL.

AN EPISTLE FROM LISBON.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THOUGH no subjects are more proper for poetry than those which are founded upon historical retrospect, the author of such a poem lies under very particular disadvantages: every one can understand and relish a work merely fictitious, descriptive, or sentimental: but a previous acquaintance, and even intimacy, with the history and characters upon which the other poem is founded, is absolutely necessary to do just ce to its author. Without such previous knowledge, the ideas which he would convey pass unobserved, as in an unknown tongue; and the happiest allusion, if he is fortunate enough to attain any thing worthy of that name, is unfelt and unseen. Under these disadvantages, the following epistle is presented to the public, whose indulgence and candour the author has already amply exper.enced.

In the twelfth century, Lisbon, and great part of Portugal and Spain, were in possession of the Moors. Alphonso, the first king of Portugal, having gained several victories over that people, was laying siege to Lisbon, when Robert, duke of Gloucester, on his way to the Holy Land, appeared upon the coast of that kingdom. As the cause was the same, Robert was easily persuaded to make his first crusade in Portugal. He demanded that the storming of the castle of Lisbon, situated on a considerable hill, and whose ruins show it to have been of great strength, should be allotted to him, while Alphonso was to assail the walls and the city. Both leaders were successful; and Alphonso, among the rewards which he bestowed upon the English, granted to those who were wounded, or unable to proceed to Palestine, the castle of Almada, and the adjoining lands.

The river Tagus, below and opposite to Lisbon, is edged by steep grotesque rocks, particularly on the south side. Those on the south are generally higher and much more magnificent and pituresque than the cliffs of Dover. Upon one of the highest of these, and directly opposite to Lisbon, remain the stately ruins of the castle of Almada.

In December, 1779, as the author was wandering among these ruins, he was struck with the idea, and formed the plan of the following poem; an idea which, it may be allowed, was natural to the translator of the Lusiad; and the plan may, in some degree, be called a supplement to that work.

The following poem, except the corrections and a few lines, was written in Portugal. The descriptive parts are strictly local. The finest prospect of Lisbon and the Tagus (which is there about four miles broad) is from Almada, which also commands the adjacent country from the rock of Cintra to the castle and city of Palmela, an extent of about fifty miles. This magnificent view is completed by

the extensive opening at the mouth of the Tagus, about ten miles below, which discovers the Atlantią ocean.

WHILE you, my friend, from low'ring wintry plains,
Now pale with snows, now black with drizzling rains,
From leafless woodlands, and dishonour'd bowers
Mantled by gloomy mists, or lash'd by showers
Of hollow moan, while not a struggling beam
Steals from the Sun to play on Isis' stream;
While from these scenes by England's winter spread,
Swift to the cheerful hearth your steps are led,
Pleas'd from the threat'ning tempest to retire,
And join the circle round the social fire;
In other climes through sun-bask d scenes I stray,
As the fair landscape leads my thoughtful way,
As upland path, oft winding, bids me rove
Where orange bowers invite, or olive grove,
No sullen phantoms brooding o'er my breast,
The genial influence of the clime I taste;
Yet still regardful of my native shore,
In ev'ry scene my roaming eyes explore,
Whate er its aspect, still, by mem'ry brought,
My fading country rushes on my thought.

While now perhaps the classic page you turn,
And warm'd with honest indignation burn,
Till hopeless, sicklied by the climate's gloom,
Your gen'rous fears call forth Britannia's doom,
What hostile spears her sacred lawns invade,
By friends deserted, by her chiefs betray'd,
Low fall'n and vanquish'd !-I, with mind serene
As Lisboa's sky, yet pensive as the scene
Around, and pensive seems the scene to me,
From other ills my country's fate foresee.

Not from the hands that wield Iberia's spear, Not from the hands that Gaul's proud thunders bear, Nor those that turn on Albion's breast the sword, Beat down of late by Albion, when it gor'd Their own, who impious doom their parent's fall Beneath the world's great foe, th' insidious Gaul; Yes, not from these the immedicable wound Of Albion-other is the bane profound Destin'd alone to touch her mortal part; Herself is sick and poison'd at the heart.

O'er Tago's banks where'er I roll mine eyes, The gallant deeds of ancient days arise; The scenes the Lusian Muses fond display'd Before me oft, as oft at eve I stray'd; By Isis' hallow'd stream. Oft now the strand Where Gama march'd his death-devoted band,

'The expedition of Vasco de Gama, the discoverer of the East Indies, was extremely unpopular, as it was esteemed impracticable. His embarkation is strongly marked by Osorius the historian. Gama, before he went on board, spent the night along with the crews of his squadron, in the chapel of our Lady at Belem, on the spot where the noble Gothic church now stands, adjoining the convent of St. Jerome.

In the chapel they bound themselves to obedience to Gama, and devoted themselves to death. "On the next day, when the adventurers marched to their ships, the shore of Belem presented one of the most solemn and affecting scenes perhaps recorded in history. The beach was covered with the inhabitants of Lisbon. A numerous procession of priests, in their robes, sung anthems, and offer

While Lisboa, aw'd with horrour, saw him spread
The daring sails that first to India led;
And oft Almada's castled steep inspires
The pensive Muse's visionary fires;
Almada Hill to English mem'ry dear,
While shades of English heroes wander here.
To ancient English valour sacred still
Remains, and ever shall, Almada Hill;
The hill and lawns to English valour given,
What time the Arab Moors from Spain were driven,
Before the banners of the cross subdu'd,
When Lisboa's towers were bathed in Moorish blood
By Glo'ster's lance.-Romantic days that yield.
Of gallant deeds a wide luxuriant field,
Dear to the Muse that loves the fairy plains,
Where ancient honour wild and ardent reigns.

Where high o'er Tago's flood Almada lowers,
Amid the solemn pomp of mouldering towers
Supinely seated, wide and far around
My eye delighted wanders. Here the bound
Of fair Europa o'er the ocean rears
Its western edge; where dimly disappears
The Atlantic wave, the slow descending day
Mild beaming pours serene the gentle ray
Of Lusitania's winter, silvering o'er
The tower-like summits of the mountain shore;
Dappling the lofty cliffs, that coldly throw
Their sable horrours o'er the vales below.
Far round the stately-shoulder'd river bends
Its giant arms, and sea-like wide extends
Its midland bays, with fertile islands crown'd,
And lawns for English valour still renown'd;
Given to Cornwallia's gallant sons of yore,
Cornwallia's name the smiling pastures bore;
And still their lord his English lineage boasts
From Rolland, famous in the croisade hosts.
Where sea-ward narrower rolls the shining tide
Through hills by hilis embosom'd on each side,
Monastic walls in ev'ry gleu arise

In coldest white fair glist'ning to the skies
Amid the brown-brow'd rocks; and, far as sight,
Proud domes and villages array'd in white
Climb o'er the steeps, and through the dusky green
Of olive groves, and orange bowers between,
Speckled with glowing red, unnumber'd gleam-
And Lisboa, tow'ring o'er the lordly stream,
Her marble palaces and temples spreads
Wildly magnific o'er the loaded heads

Of bending hills, along whose high-pil'd base
The port capacious, in a moon'd embrace,
Throws her mast-forest, waving on the gale
The vanes of ev'ry shore that hoists the sail.
Here, while the Sun from Europe's breast retires,
Let fancy, roaming as the scene inspires,
Pursue the present and the past restore,
And Nature's purpose in her steps explore.
Nor you, my friend, admiring Rome, disdain
Th' Iberian fields and Lusitanian Spain.
While Italy, obscur'd in tawdry blaze,
A motley modern character displays,
And languid trims her long exhaused store,
Iberia's fields, with rich and genuine ore

ed up invocations to Heaven. Every one beheld the adventurers as brave innocent men going to a dreadful execution, as rushing upon certain death.” Introduction to the Lusiad.

2 The houses in Portugal are generally whitened on the outside, white being esteemed as repulsive of the rays of the Sun.