ce, once gone by.

The air, in which we breathe and live,
Eludes our touch and sight;
The fairest flowers their fragrance give
To stillness, and to night;
The softest sounds that music flings,
In passing, from her heaven-plumed wings,
Are trackless in their flight!
And thus life's sweetest bliss is known
To silent, grateful thought alone.

This mournful event, combined with discouraging prospects of a
mercantile nature, induced our author to retire from commercial pursuits
on his own behalf; and in 1810 he obtained a situation as a clerk in the
Woodbridge bank, which he still holds.

Soon after Mr. Barton had entered upon his present situation, he
began "to commit the sin of rhyme," and a new provincial paper being
established about this time, it became the vehicle of his effusions: by
degrees our young poet became bold enough to send a short piece now and
then to a London paper, and at last, in 1812, ventured on an anonymous
volume, entitled _Metrical Effusions_, 250 copies of which were printed
by a bookseller of Woodbridge, and sold within the immediate circle of
our author's acquaintance. In 1818, Mr. Barton printed, by subscription,
an elegant volume, in elephant octavo, of _Poems by an Amateur_,
of which 150 only were struck off, and none ever sold at the shops.
Encouraged by the very flattering manner in which these impressions of
his poems were received by his friends, our author at last ventured to
publish, in a small volume, _Poems, by Bernard Barton_, which was very
favourably noticed by the literary journals, and, being afterwards made
still more known by an article in the _Edinburgh Review_, has now
reached a _third_ edition. He afterwards published, in a handsome octavo
volume, his _Napoleon and other Poems_; and subsequently a volume of
poems, entitled _A Widow's Tale_, which appeared in an early month of
the present year.

Such has been the literary career of Bernard Barton. If it have not left
behind it the brilliant track of other poetical comets, it has been less
erratic in its course; and if it have not been irradiated by the full
blaze of a noonday sun, it has nevertheless been illumined by the silver
lustre of the queen of night; and his Parnassian vespers may be said to
possess all the mild and soothing beauties of the evening star. If his
muse have not always reached the sunward path of the soaring eagle,
it is no extravagant praise to say, that she has often emul