Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Volume 3 by Gilfillan, George, 1813-1878

AMBROSE PHILIPS.

This gentleman--remembered now chiefly as Pope's temporary rival--was born in 1671, in Leicestershire; studied at Cambridge; and, being a great Whig, was appointed by the government of George I. to be Commissioner of the Collieries, and afterwards to some lucrative appointments in Ireland. He was also made one of the Commissioners of the Lottery. He was elected member for Armagh in the Irish House of Commons. He returned home in 1748, and died the next year in his lodgings at Vauxhall.

His works are 'The Distressed Mother,' a tragedy translated from Racine, and greatly praised in the _Spectator_; two deservedly forgotten plays, 'The Briton,' and 'Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester;' some miscellaneous pieces, of which an epistle to the Earl of Dorset, dated Copenhagen, has some very vivid lines; his Pastorals, which were commended by Tickell at the expense of those of Pope, who took his revenge by damning them, not with 'faint' but with fulsome and ironical praise, in the _Guardian_; and the subjoined fragment from Sappho, which is, particularly in the first stanza, melody itself. Some conjecture that it was touched up by Addison.

A FRAGMENT OF SAPPHO.

1 Blessed as the immortal gods is he, The youth who fondly sits by thee, And hears and sees thee all the while Softly speak, and sweetly smile.

2 'Twas this deprived my soul of rest, And raised such tumults in my breast; For while I gazed, in transport tossed, My breath was gone, my voice was lost.

3 My bosom glowed: the subtle flame Ran quickly through my vital frame; O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung, My ears with hollow murmurs rung.

4 In dewy damps my limbs were chilled, My blood with gentle horrors thrilled; My feeble pulse forgot to play, I fainted, sunk, and died away.

WILLIAM HAMILTON.

William Hamilton, of Bangour, was born in Ayrshire in 1704. He was of an ancient family, and mingled from the first in the most fashionable circles. Ere he was twenty he wrote verses in Ramsay's 'Tea-Table Miscellany.' In 1745, to the surprise of many, he joined the standard of Prince Charles, and wrote a poem on the battle of Gladsmuir, or Prestonpans. When the reverse of his party came, after many wanderings and hair's-breadth escapes in the Highlands, he found refuge in France. As he was a general favourite, and as much allowance was made for his poetical temperament, a pardon was soon procured for him by his friends, and he returned to his native country. His health, however, originally delicate, had suffered by his Highland privations, and he was compelled to seek the milder clime of Lyons, where he died in 1754.