To keep the days on Zion's Mount,
And send the year to his account,
With dances and with songs:

O servant of God's holiest charge,
The minister of praise at large,

Which thou may'st now receive; From thy blest mansion hail and hear, From topmost eminence appear

To this the wreath I weave.

Great, valiant, pious, good, and clean,
Sublime, contemplative, serene,
Strong, constant, pleasant, wise!
Bright effluence of exceeding grace;
Best man! the swiftness and the race,
The peril and the prize!

Great-from the lustre of his crown,
From Samuel's horn, and God's renown,
Which is the people's voice;
For all the host, from rear to van,
Applauded and embraced the man-
The man of God's own choice.
Valiant-the word, and up he rose;
The fight-he triumphed o'er the foes
Whom God's just laws abhor;
And, armed in gallant faith, he took
Against the boaster, from the brook,
The weapons of the war.

Pious-magnificent and grand,
'Twas he the famous temple planned,
(The seraph in his soul:)

Foremost to give the Lord his dues,
Foremost to bless the welcome news,
And foremost to condole.

Good-from Jehudah's genuine vein,
From God's best nature, good in grain,
His aspect and his heart:
To pity, to forgive, to save,
Witness En-gedi's conscious cave,
And Shimei's blunted dart.

Clean-if perpetual prayer be pure,
And love, which could itself inure
To fasting and to fear-

Clean in his gestures, hands, and feet,
To smite the lyre, the dance complete,
To play the sword and spear.
Sublime-invention ever young,
Of vast conception, towering tongue,
To God the eternal theme;
Notes from you exaltations caught,
Unrivalled royalty of thought,

O'er meaner strains supreme.

Contemplative on God to fix

His musings, and above the six

The Sabbath-day he blest;

'Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned,
And heavenly melancholy tuned,

To bless and bear the rest.

Serene-to sow the seeds of peace,
Remembering when he watched the fleece,

How sweetly Kidron purled-
To further knowledge, silence vice,
And plant perpetual paradise,

When God had calmed the world.

Strong-in the Lord, who could defy
Satan, and all his powers that lie
In sempiternal night;

And hell, and horror, and despair,
Were as the lion and the bear
To his undaunted might.

Constant-in love to God, the Truth,
Age, manhood, infancy, and youth-
To Jonathan his friend
Constant, beyond the verge of death;
And Ziba, and Mephibosheth.
His endless fame attend.

Pleasant-and various as the year;
Man, soul, and angel without peer,
Priest, champion, sage, and boy;

In armour, or in ephod clad,

His pomp, his piety was glad;

Majestic was his joy.

Wise-in recovery from his fall,

Whence rose his eminence o'er all,

Of all the most reviled;

The light of Israel in his ways,

Wise are his precepts, prayer, and praise,

And counsel to his child.

CHRISTOPHER ANSTEY, the author of The New Bath Guide, a light satirical and humorous poem, was the son of the Rev. Dr. Anstey, and was born at Brinkeley, Cambridgeshire, in 1724. His father was possessor of considerable landed property, which the poet afterwards inherited. Anstey pursued his preparatory studies at Eton school, whence he was elected to King's College, Cambridge, and in both places he distinguished himself as a classical scholar. Just before he closed his course of study at the university, he refused to deliver certain declamations, in consequence of which he was denied the usual degree. He afterwards entered the army, but his marriage with Miss Calvert, sister to John Calvert, of Allbury Hall, in Hertfordshire, changed his destiny, and through the influence of his brother-inlaw he was returned to parliament for the borough of Hertford.

Anstey passed much of his time in the city of Bath, and was a great favorite in the fashionable and literary circles of the place. In 1766, he published his celebrated poem, "The New Bath Guide,' and it immediately became popular. He wrote various other pieces, among which are A Poem on the Death of the Marquis of Tavistock; An Election Ball; in Poetical Letters from Mr. Inkle, at Bath, to his Wife at Gloucester; A Pharaphase of the Thirteenth Chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians; a satire entitled, The Priest Dissected; Speculation, or a Defence of Mankind; Liberality, or Memoirs of a Decayed Macaroni; and The Farmer's Daughter, a Poetical Tale. Anstey also translated Gray's Elegy into Latin verse, and addressed an elegant Latin Ode to Dr. Jenner. While 'The New Bath Guide' was 'the only thing in fashion,' and relished for its novel and original kind of humor, the other productions of Anstey were neglected by the public, and have never been revived. In the enjoyment of his paternal estate the poet, however, was independent of the public support, and he took part in the sports of the field up to the eightieth year of his age. While on a visit to his son-in-law, at Harnage, in Wiltshire, he was taken ill, and there died on the third of August, 1805.

The following passage from 'The New Bath Guide,' is a fair sample of the whole poem :

THE PUBLIC BREAKFAST.

Now my lord had the honour of coming down post,

To pay his respects to so famous a toast;

In hopes he her ladyship's favour might win,

By playing the part of a host at an inn,

I'm sure he's a person of great resolution,

Though delicate nerves, and a weak constitution

For he carried us all to a place cross the river,

And vowed that the rooms were too hot for his liver:

He said it would greatly our pleasure promote,

If we all for Spring Garden sat out in a boat:

I never as yet could his reason explain,

Why we all sallied forth in the wind and the rain;

For sure such confusion was never yet known;
Here a cap and a hat, there a cardinal blown:

While his lordship, embroidered and powdered all o'er,

Was bowing, and handing the ladies ashore:

How the misses did huddle, and scuddle, and run;

One would think to be wet must be very good fun;

For by waggling their tails, they all seemed to take pains

To moisten their pinions like ducks when it rains;
And 'twas pretty to see, how like birds of a feather,
The people of quality flocked all together;

All pressing, addressing, caressing, and fond,

Just the same as those animals are in a pond:
You've read all their names in the news, I suppose,
But for fear you have not, take the list as it goes:
There was Lady Greasewrister,

And Madame Van-Twister,

Her ladyship's sister:

Lord Cram, and Lord Vulture,

Sir Brandish O'Culter,

With Marshal Carouzer,

And old Lady Mouzer,

And the great Hanoverian Baron Panzmouzer;
Besides many others who all in the rain went,
On purpose to honour this great entertainment:
The company made a most brilliant appearance,
And ate bread and butter with great perseverance.
All the chocolate too, that my lord set before 'em,
The ladies dispatched with the utmost decorum.
Soft musical numbers were heard all around,
The horns and the clarions echoing sound.

Sweet were the strains, as odorous gales that blow
O'er fragrant banks, where pinks and roses grow,
The peer was quite ravished, while close to his side
Sat Lady Bunbutter, in beautiful pride!

Oft turning his eyes, he with rapture surveyed
All the powerful charms she so nobly displayed:
As when at the feast of the great Alexander,
Timotheus, the musical son of Thersander,
Breathed heavenly measures.

THOMAS PERCY, chiefly known as the compiler of the Reliques of English Poetry, was related to the Percys of Northumberland, and was born at Bridgenorth, Shropshire, in 1728. He was educated at Christ Church College, Oxford, where, in 1753, he took his master's degree, immediately after which he entered into orders, and became chaplain to the king. In 1778, he was promoted to the deanery of Carlisle, and four years afterwards advanced to the see of Dromore, in Ireland, in which he remained until his death, in 1811.

Dr. Percy's 'Reliques of English Poetry,' contains many excellent old songs and ballads, and a selection of the best lyrical pieces scattered throughout the works of more modern authors. The learning and ability with which . he executed his task, and the sterling value of his materials, give to his volumes great importance. They soon found their way into the hands of poets and poetical readers, and awakened a love of nature, simplicity, and true passion, in contradistinction to that coldly-correct and sentimental style which pervaded so much of the poetry of his day. The influence of Percy's collection was very general, and is perceived in the poetry of the present time. It opened a spring of sweet, tender, and heroic thoughts and imaginations, which could never be again turned back into the artificial channels in which the genius of poesy had been too long and too closely confined. Percy was himself a poet, and the following ballad evinces both taste and talent :

O NANNY, WILT THOU GANG WI' ME.

O, Nanny, wilt thou gang wi' me,

Nor sigh to leave the flaunting town?
Can silent glens have charms for thee,
The lowly cot and russet gown?
Nae langer drest in silken sheen,
Nae langer decked wi' jewels rare,
Say, canst thou quit each courtly scene,
Where thou wert fairest of the fair?

O, Nanny, when thou'rt far awa,

Wilt thou not cast a look behind?
Say, canst thou face the flaky snaw,
Nor shrink before the winter wind?
O can that soft and gentle mien

Severest hardships learn to bear,
Nor, sad, regret each courtly scene,
Where thou wert fairest of the fair?

O Nanny, canst thou love so true,
Through perils keen wi' me to gae?
Or, when thy swain mishap shall rue,
To share wi' him the pang of wae?
Say, should disease or pain befall,

Wilt thou assume the nurse's care,
Nor, wishful, those gay scenes recall,
Where thou wert fairest of the fair?
And when at last thy love shall die,
Wilt thou receive his parting breath?
Wilt thee repress each struggling sigh,

And cheer with smiles the bed of death?
And wilt thou o'er his much-loved clay
Strew flowers, and drop the tender tear?
Nor then regret those scenes so gay,
Where thou wert fairest of the fair?

Besides various other poems and poetic translations, Dr. Percy was the author of A Key to the New Testament, which, as a text book, is of very great value.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH, the author of The Traveller, and The Deserted Village, two of the most popular poems in the English language, was born at Pallas, a small village in the county of Longford, Ireland, on the tenth of November, 1728. He was the sixth son of a family of nine children, and his father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, was a poor curate, who eked out the pittance which he derived from his profession, by renting and cultivating a small farm. The poet's father afterwards succeeded to the rectory of Kilkenny West, and removed to the house and farm of Lissoy, in his former parish. Here Goldsmith's youth was spent, and here he stored his mind with those rural images which he afterwards so beautifully elaborated in his 'Deserted Village.'