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"I'LL tell her the next time," said I
In vain! in vain! for when I try,

Upon my timorous tongue the trembling accents die.
Alas! a thousand thousand fears

Still overawe when she appears!

My breath is spent in sighs, my eyes are drown'd in tears.

HERE end my chains, and thraldom cease,
If not in joy, I'll live at least in peace;
Since for the pleasures of an hour
We must endure an age of pain,

I'll be this abject thing no more :
Love, give me back my heart again!

Despair tormented first my breast,
Now falsehood, a moré cruel guest:
O! for the peace of human kind,

Make women longer true, or sooner kind ;
With justice, or with mercy reign,

O Love! or give me back my heart again!

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JAMES HAMMOND.

1733.

It may not be incurious to remark, that the father of this poet was not only a votary of the Muse, and lover of the Fair, but, like his son, unsuccessful in the object of his early choice. Perceiving, however, the fruitlessness of his pursuit, Anthony Hammond wisely relinquished it, in favour of Susanna Walpole, daughter of the great Lord Orford, by whom he had two sons.

James, the younger, was born in 1711. He received an excellent education at Westminster school, and, early introduced to the notice of public characters, readily obtained the appointment of Equerry to Frederic Prince of Wales. While in this situation, he became enamoured of Miss Dashwood, bed-ehamber woman to Queen Caroline, the lady whose beauty he celebrates, and whose inflexibility he deplores, in his Elegies to DELIA. Inadequacy of fortune, it has been asserted, constituted Miss Dashwood's only objection to a compliance with the solicitations of her admirer. If at this period, however, by the bequest of his relation Nicholas, Hammond had acquired a yearly property of 400 7. aided, as he was, by connexions highly conducive to his future interests, and in the hope and vigour of his days, how sordid must be the determination that could prompt the rejection of his suit, solely in consideration of pecuniary inconveniences! That she survived him long, refusing other overtures towards matrimony, is by many admitted as indubitable evidence of her exclusive attachment to her deceased lover. The fact, notwithstanding, might be the reverse of this conclusion. Repeatedly accused of selfishness and avarice, was it not desirable to rebut so odious a charge, by declining to connect herself in marriage with another? Whatever were the reasons which induced her indifference to Hammond; he who promised only to loiter away his years in the soft solitude of obscurity, was not exactly calculated either to augment or secure

those resources on which the happiness of life most essentially depends.

Hammond died at Stowe, the delightful retreat of Lord Cobham, a place consecrated to taste and friendship, on June 7, 1742. He had been elected into parliament: but, unambitious of imitating the senatorial career of his father, whom Walpole was accustomed to style "the silver-tongued Hammond," he exclaims, in his thirteenth elegy, alluding to Lord Chesterfield,

"Let Stanhope speak his listening Country's wrongs: My humble verse shall please one partial Maid; For her alone I pen my tender songs,

Securely sitting in his friendly shade!"

Reviewed as an amatory bard, the character in which he is professedly to be considered, Hammond has certainly. enjoyed his full proportion of reputation. He no longer fills the space he once occupied in the temple of fame. Many of his situations imagined, many of his sentiments affected, in all his compositions there is too little of nature or truth. If he is often pleasing, he is seldom impassioned. He may succeed in alluring the imagination; but he cannot seize, and command the feelings.

HE ADJURES DELIA TO PITY HIM BY THEIR FRIENDSHIP
WITH CŒLIA, WHO WAS LATELY DEAD.

THOUSANDS Would seek the lasting peace of death,
And in that harbour shun the storm of care!
Officious hope still holds the fleeting breath;
She tells them, still-To-morrow will be fair.

She tells me, Delia, I shall thee obtain,
But can I listen to her syren song,

Who seven slow months have dragg'd my painful chain?
So long thy lover, and despis'd so long!

By all the joys thy dearest Cœlia gave,
Let not her once-lov'd friend unpitied i..
So may her ashes find a peaceful grave,
And sleep uninjur'd in their sacred urn.

To her I first avow'd my timorous flame,
She nurs'd my hopes, and taught me how to
She still would pity what the wise might blam
And feel for weakness which she never knew.

Ah! do not grieve the dear lamented Shade,
That, hovering round us, all my sufferings ha
She is my Saint-to her my prayers are made,
With oft repeated gifts of flowers and tears:

To her sad tomb, at midnight, I retire;
And, lonely sitting by the silent stone,
I tell it all the griefs my wrongs inspire :-
The marble image seems to hear my moan!

The friend's pale ghost shall vex thy sleepless bed,
And stand before thee, all in virgin white;
That ruthless bosom will disturb the dead,
And call forth pity from eternal night.

Cease, cruel man, the mournful theme forbear ;
Though much thou suffer, to thyself complain :
Ah! to recal the sad remembrance spare ;
One tear from her is more than all thy pain.

AH! what avails thy lover's pious care?
His lavish incense clouds the sky in vain;
Nor wealth nor greatness was his idle pray'r,
For thee alone he pray'd, thee hoped to gain.

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