THE LIFE OF WILLIAM FALCONER. THE obscurity in which the early part of the life of William Falconer is involved, precludes us from detailing memoirs and anecdotes of him anterior to the year 1751, or even his education. Scotland has the honour of giving birth to this extraordinary genius, who, rising superior to every impediment which surrounded him, displayed his poetic powers at a very early age, in a small poem which he published at Edinburgh in the year 1751, on the death of the Prince of Wales, under the title of-A Poem, sacred to the Memory of the Prince of Wales. From this time till the year 1762, we have no traces of his genius; he then published his beautiful Poem of The Shipwreck, in three cantos, by a Sailor. The main subject of this masterly composition, is a descriptive account of the voyage of the Britannia merchantman, from Alexandria in Egypt to Venice: after touching at the Isle of Candia, she was proceeding on her voyage, when she encountered a violent storm, that drove her on the coast of Greece, near Cape Colonna, where she unfortunately suffered shipwreck; three only of the crew escaping with their lives. This admirable Poem, which has fixed his fame on the solid basis of universal approbation, partakes more of the effusions of fancy than the labours of art, which he displays in new and original scenes, taken from nature and his own actual observation, and enriched with all the variety of description that can charm, interest, and impress the mind of the reader. He displays an ample combination of nautical ability, in language conformable to marine technical terms, embellished with all the spontaneous flow and smooth harmony of verse. The Author inscribed this Poem to the late Duke of York, next brother to his Majesty, then an officer in the Royal Navy.-That he was exposed to all the complicated horrors he so forcibly |