THREE:The Lords Justices having met, appointed Joseph Addison, afterwards so celebrated as a writer, and even now very popular, as their secretary, and ordered all despatches addressed to Bolingbroke to be brought to him. This was an intimation that Bolingbroke would be dismissed; and that proud Minister, instead of giving orders, was obliged to receive them, and to wait at the door of the Council-chamber with his bags and papers. As the Lords Justices were apprehending that there might be some disturbances in Ireland, they were about to send over Sunderland as Lord-Lieutenant, and General Stanhope as Commander-in-Chief; but they were speedily relieved of their fears by the intelligence that all had passed off quietly there; that the Lords Justices of Ireland, the Archbishop of Armagh, and Sir Constantine Phipps, who had been more than suspected of Jacobitism, had proclaimed the king on the 6th of August, and, to give evidence of their new zeal, had issued a proclamation for disarming Papists and seizing their horses. The proclamation of George passed with the same quietness in Scotland, and no king, had he been born a native, in the quietest times, could have succeeded to the throne more smoothly. Eighteen lords, chiefly Whigs, were nominated by the new king to act as a Council of Regency, pending his arrival, and the Civil List was voted by Parliament.Still more have "The Seasons" and "The Castle of Indolence" of James Thomson retained, and are likely to retain, the public favour. "The Seasons" is a treasury of the life and imagery of the country, animated by a true love of Nature and of God, and abounding in passages of fire, healthy feeling, and strong sense, often of sublime conceptions, in a somewhat stiff and vicious style. "The Castle of Indolence" is a model of metrical harmony and luxurious fancy, in the Spenserian stanza. Another poet of the same time and countryScotlandis Allan Ramsay, who, in his native dialect, has painted the manners and sung the rural loves of Scotland in his "Gentle Shepherd" and his rustic lyrics. Till Burns, no Scottish poet so completely embodied the spirit, feelings, and popular life of his country. Amongst a host of verse-makers, then deemed poets, but who were merely imitators of imitators, we must except Gray, with his nervous lyrics, and, above all, his ever-popular "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." Gray also has a genuine vein of wit and merriment in his verse. Collins was a poet who under happier conditions might have done the greatest things. Parnell's "Hermit," Blair's "Grave," Shenstone's "School Mistress," Akenside's "Imagination," can yet charm some readers, and there are others in great numbers whose works yet figure in collections of the poets, or whose individual poems are selected in anthologies, as Smith, King, Sprat Bishop of Rochester, Duke, Montague Earl of Halifax, Nicholas Rowe, Dyerauthor of the "Fleece," "Grongar Hill," and "Ruins of Rome,"Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, Fenton, Somervilleauthor of "The Chase," "Field Sports," etc.,Hammondauthor of "Love Elegies,"Lord Lyttelton, Mallet, Mickleauthor of the ballads of "Cumnor Hall," "There's Nae Luck about the House," and translator of the "Lusiad" of Camoens,Shaw, Harte, West, Cawthorne, Lloyd, Gilbert Cooper, Graingerauthor of "The Sugar Cane," and the once popular ballad of "Bryan and Pereene,"Dodsley, poet and bookseller, Boyseauthor of "The Deity," a poem, etc.,Smollettmore remarkable as a novelist and historian,Michael Bruce, Walsh, Falconerauthor of "The Shipwreck,"Yalden, Pattison, Aaron Hill, Broome, Pittthe translator of Virgil,John Philipsauthor of "Cider," a poem, "The Splendid Shilling," etc.,West, and others. In fact, this age produced poets enough to have constituted the rhythmical literature of a nation, had they had as much genius as they had learning.
Volunteer, Porshee Foundation
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