Third in the labours of the disc came on, With sturdy step and slow, Hippomedon; Artful and strong he poised the well-known weight, By Phlegyas warn'd, and fired by Mnestheus' fate, That to avoid and this to emulate. His vigorous arm he tried before he flung, Braced all his nerves, and every sinew strung, Then with a tempest's whirl and wary eye Pursued his cast, and hurl'd the orb on high; The orb on high, tenacious of its course, 10 True to the mighty arm that gave it force, Far overleaps all bound, and joys to see Its ancient lord secure of victory: The theatre's green height and woody wall Tremble ere it precipitates its fall; The ponderous mass sinks in the cleaving ground, While vales and woods and echoing hills rebound. As when, from Aetna's smoking summit broke, The eyeless Cyclops heaved the craggy rock, Where Ocean frets beneath the dashing oar, 20 And parting surges round the vessel roar; 'Twas there he aim'd the meditated harm, And scarce Ulysses 'scaped his giant arm. A tiger's pride the victor bore away, With native spots and artful labour gay, A shining border round the margin roll'd, And calm'd the terrors of his claws in gold. CAMBRIDGE, _May_ 8, 1736. * * * * * GRAY ON HIMSELF. Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune, He had not the method of making a fortune; Could love and could hate, so was thought something odd; No very great wit, he believed in a God; A post or a pension he did not desire, But left church and state to Charles Townshend and Squire. * * * * * END OF GRAY'S POEMS. * * * * * THE POETICAL WORKS OF TOBIAS SMOLLETT. THE LIFE OF TOBIAS SMOLLETT. The combination of a great writer and a small poet, in one and the same person, is not uncommon. With not a few, while other, and severer branches of study are the laborious task of the day, poetry is the slipshod amusement of the evening. Dr Parr calls Johnson _probabilis poeta_--words which seem to convey the notion that the author of "The Rambler," who was great on other fields, was in that of poetry only respectable. This term is more applicable to Smollett, whose poems discover only in part those keen, vigorous, and original powers which enabled him to indite "Roderick Random" and "Humphrey Clinker." Yet the author of "Independence," and "The Tears of Scotland," must not be excluded from the list of British poets--an honour to which much even of his prose has richly entitled him.