Having at length surmounted the difficulties of his situa tion, Glover again relinquished the pleasures of retirement ; and in the parliament which met at the accession of his present Majesty, in 1761, he was elected member for Wey mouth, and sat till March 1768. in 1770, he published a new edition of Leonidas, corrected throughout, and extend ed from nine books to twelve. In 1772 and the following years, he took a very active interest in winding up the com plicated concerns of Douglas, Heron and Company at Ayr. He also undertook to manage the interests (tithe merchants and traders in London, concerned in the trade to Germany and Holland, and of the dealers in foreign linens, in their application to parliament, in the month of May 1774. In 1775, he assisted the West India merchants in their appli cation to parliament ; and examined the witnesses, and summed up the evidence, in the same masterly manner he had done on former occasions. For his assistance 6pon this occasion, he was complimented with a service of plate of the value of 300/. The speech lie delivered to the House was printed in the above-mentioned year.
Glover had now arrived at a period of life which de manded relief from the cares of business. He therefore re tired to ease and independence, devoting himself princi pally to the exercise of private virtues and domestic duties, and to the pleasures of literature. He died at his house in Albemarle Street, on the 25th of November 1735, in the 73d year of his age. Among other manuscripts, he left behind hint, The ?llienaid, a sequel to Leonidas. which was published in 1788. He also wrote a sequel to his Medea, which, however, has never been exhibited on the stage.
In his person and habits, Glover was a finished gentle man of the old school, slow and precise in his manner, grave and serious in his deportment, and always in the highest degree decorous ; but although his natural temper was benevolent, he is said to have been at once irritable and violent. He was very strict in his moral conduct ; and although he was brought up in the principles of a dissen ter, he attended the established church. lie appears to have been an accomplished scholar ; and it is evident from his life and writings, that his mind was much devoted to poli tical subjects ; but he always avoided such topics of dis cussion in his own domestic circle. As a poet, Glover dis plays a cultivated mind, a poetical fancy, and a vigorous and harmonious flow of versification ; but he appears to have wanted that inventive imagination, and that higher spirit of enthusiasm, which give birth to the noblest pro ductions of art. The chief defect of his Leonidas appears to consist in the subject : the historical facts upon which the poem is founded, are too well known, and too sublime and affecting of themselves, to admit of dilatation or em bellishment, without diminishing the impression made up on the mind by the simple and unadorned recital.
Glover has been recently brought forward as a candidate for the credit of the Letters of Junius. The hypothesis is not without some plausibility ; and there are cei tainly cir cumstances in his character and situation, which give con siderable support to his claim. But the presumptive proofs, we think, have not yet been arrayed in such order, or stated with such force, as to make the conjecture assume the ap pearance of probability. See Memoirs by a celebrated Li terary and Political Character, London, 1814 ; and, An In quiry concerning the Author of the Letters of Junius, with reference to the Memoirs, Sz.c. London, 1314. (x) GLOW-Woum. Several of the smaller animals are en dowed with the remarkable property of emitting light from their bodies as night advances, which becomes impercepti ble on the approach of day : the creature can no longer be distinguished from the myriads of beings around it. Eight genera of insects are known to be luminous in the dark, in which is included the genus Lampyris of Linnxus ; the male, a winged animal of the colcopterous order, but the female is in general a worm, entirely destitute of wings, and so unlike the other, that nothing less than the sexual congress has been required to establish its kindred. This is the common glow-worm, to which our attention shall be briefly directed.
The Lampyris noctiluca, or glow-worm, is about three quarters of an inch long, when full grown ; dark-brown above, and yellowish-white below. It crawls on six feet, and its body is divided into eleven segments, of which the last eight constitute the abdomen. The head, which is ve ry small, round, and black, is concealed by the thorax, while in a state of repose. The eyes, also black, are large; and the antenn?, which are filiform, to the naked eye con sist of eleven articulations, separated by white rings. Nei ther wings nor their rudiments exist, and the animal ad vances with a very sluggish motion, frequenting humid places, and living among the grass. Naturalists conjec ture, from its conformation, that it is carnivorous. The male of this species, which is exceedingly rare, and which some of the most industrious entomologists have never seen, is said to has e brownish clytra covering the wings ; but the female is not only more numerous, but well known, from depositing a cluster of eggs on twigs or straws ; and the young animals pass through the state of a larva and nymph, between which there is less difference than among insects in general.