Ye clouds, that far above me float and pause, Whose pathless march no mortal may controul! Ye ocean waves, that, whereso'er ye roll, Yield homage only to eternal laws! Ye woods, that listen to the night-birds singing, Midway the smooth and perilous steep reclin'd; Save when your own imperious branches swinging, Have made a solemn music of the wind! Where, like a man belov'd of God, Through glooms, which never woodman trod, How oft, pursuing fancies holy, My moonlight way o'er flow'ring weeds I wound, Inspir'd beyond the guess of folly, By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound! O, ye loud waves, and O, ye forests high, And O, ye clouds, that far above me soar'd! Thou rising sun! thou blue rejoicing sky! Yea, every thing that is and will be free, Bear witness for me wheresoe'er ye be, With what deep worship I have still adored The spirit of divinest liberty. _Coleridge. France, An Ode._ The Elegy written in a churchyard in South Wales, is not more below Gray's. Of eagerness to obtain poetical distinction he had much more than Gray; but in tact, judgment, and learning, was exceedingly his inferior. He was altogether a man of talent, if I may be allowed to use the word talent according to the sense it bore in our old English; for he had a vehement _desire_ of excellence, but wanted either the depth of mind or the industry that was necessary for producing anything that was very excellent. FOOTNOTES [1] It is said, that the best likeness of Gray is to be found in the figure of Scipio, in an engraving for the edition of Gil Blas, printed at Amsterdam, 1735, vol. iv. p. 94.--See Mr. Mitford's Gray, vol. i. lxxxi. A copy of this figure would be acceptable to many of Gray's admirers. [2] Essays on English Church Music, Mason's Works, vol. iii. p. 370. * * * * * OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Oliver, the second son of Charles and Anne Goldsmith, was born in Ireland, on the 10th of November, 1728, at Pallas, in the Parish of Forgany or Forney in the County of Longford. By a mistake made in the note of his entrance in the college register, he is represented to have been a native of the county of Westmeath. His father, who had before resided at Smith-hill in the county of Roscommon, (which has by some been erroneously said to be the birth-place of his son, Oliver,) removed thence to Pallas, and afterwards to his Rectory of Kilkenny West, in the county of Westmeath; and in the latter of these parishes, at Lissoy, or Auburn, he built the house described as the Village-Preacher's modest mansion in the Deserted Village. His mother was daughter of the Rev. Oliver Jones, master of the diocesan school at Elphin. Their family consisted of five sons and three daughters.