" Of the poet's free hours, during the last years of his residence which he refers to as among the happiest of his life, many were spent in solitary musing by an elm-tree, near a tomb to which his name has been givena spot commanding a far view of London, of Windsor "bosomed high in tufted trees," and of the green fields that stretch between, covered in spring with the white and red snow of apple blossom.

Then, first aroused in that appointed hour, The Tragic Muse confess'd th' inspiring power; Sudden before the startled earth she stood, A giant spectre, weeping tears and blood; Guilt shrunk appall'd, Despair embraced his shroud, And Terror shriek'd, and Pity sobb'd aloud; Then, first Thalia with dilated ken

Not always does the great historic muse fill up the flaws of story, leaving rather much to the imagination.

THE DREAM OF SÁM It is said that one night, after melancholy musings and reflecting on the miseries of this life, Sám was visited by a dream, and when the particulars of it were communicated to the interpreters of mysterious warnings and omens, they declared that Zál was certainly still alive, although he had been long exposed on Alberz, and left there to be torn to pieces by wild animals.

It is more probable that, as regards prose-fiction, they did not realize that they were called upon to explain the omission of the tenth muse.

Drayton's sweet muse is like a sanguine dye, Able to ravish the rash gazer's eye.

And thus Hermione reached her home, her countenance lighted up by the pleasure of success, and the sweet and healthy musings of her solitary walk.

The "finish" of Gray, Goldsmith, and Rogers suited exquisitely with their pensive musings on Human Life.

Mr. Edmund Smith in his beautiful verses on our Author's Death, speaks thus concerning this poem; 'In her best light the comic muse appears, When she with borrowed pride the buskin wears.'

He will say that I am rash and foolish, and perhaps I am; will he suspect that it was to save him that I undertook this errand, which, after all, is attended with no risk to me worth mentioning?" These were pleasant musings, but the task before her was too serious and made too close demands on her mental and physical energies for her to indulge in them.

what need my humble muse to tell, When Rapture's self has echoed forth thy fame?

Instead of Coleridge being the first whose muse had soared in the new Drury, Drury was the first place in which his dramatic muse had soared.

I am sure that this choice does not arise from the minstrels themselves having craft enough to select "a mournful muse, soft pity to infuse."

Her turn was chiefly to philosophical or divine subjects; yet could her heavenly muse descend from its sublime height to the easy epistolary stile, and suit itself to my then gay disposition.

He reproduces the conceptions of the rabbis, of the popular Jewish belief, of Gamaliel, of Tarsus, of Athens; transfigured on the heights of thought to which he climbed, in his intense musings over the problem of Jesus of Nazareth, while buried away in Arabia.

'For pointed satire I would Buckhurst choose, The best good man, with the worst-natured muse.' Rochester's Imitations of Horace, Sat. i. 10.

Books are like individuals; you know at once if they are going to create a sense within the sense, to fever, to madden you in blood and brain, or if they will merely leave you indifferent, or irritable, having unpleasantly disturbed sweet intimate musings as might a draught from an open window.

To find employment for my pen, I wandered from the haunts of men, And sought a little rising ground, With lofty oaks and elm trees crowned, Where I might court the friendly muse, Who ever thinks herself abused When woo'd 'midst tumult, noise and strife, And all the busy cares of life.

With diaries, as Dryden has expressed it, The officious muses came along, A gay, harmonious quire, like angels ever young.

And well could you, in your immortal strains, Describe his conduct, and reward his pains: But since the state has all your cares engross'd, And poetry in higher thoughts is lost, Attend to what a lesser Muse indites, Pardon her faults and countenance her flights.

He is often puerile, diffuse, and artificial, and seems to have but little acquaintance with those chaster and severer graces, by whom the epic muse would be most suitably attended.

Witnesse, ye muses, how I wilful sung These heady rhimes, withouten second care; And wish'd them worse my guilty thoughts among; The ruder satire should go ragg'd and bare, And shew his rougher and his hairy hide, Tho' mine be smooth, and deck'd in carelesse pride.

[A] O gentle Muses!

As he gazes on the giant mountain, which seems to support with its huge rocky arms the frame-work of the skies, its head covered with everlasting snow, he forgets the fatigue of his painful route under an African sun; and, lost in pious musings, adores the Omnipotent being who laid the foundation of this solid buttress.

Hazlitt's review of Wilson's book is in the Edinburgh for January, 1830, with this reference to Lamb's criticisms: "Captain Singleton is a hardened, brutal desperado, without one redeeming trait, or almost human feeling; and, in spite of what Mr. Lamb says of his lonely musings and agonies of a conscience-stricken repentance, we find nothing of this in the text.