Dear Hal, if thou lov'st me, as Falstaff would say, And, if he will rise, when you wish to be gay, Then let him, when Bacchus and Pleasure combine The bibbers of water are drunkards, not we, For man's like a beast, drinking water, and he Let Lydia, the lovely enchantress, appear Then cease my dear quidnunc, to groan at the news, But, if you must study, oh, study to lose, In this day's enjoyment, the thought of to-morrow. The wit and ingenuity of our arch imitator are sometimes employed at the expense of their worships and their reverences. Mrs. Hannah More, however, will hardly frown at the following humorous verses. It may be remarked, by the way, that the two first stanzas are in the very spirit of Flaccus; and a mere English reader, may be pretty well satisfied with looking, as a pedant would say, even at the wrong side of the tapestry. BOOK I. ODE XXXIV. Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens. Inveigled by Hume, from the temple of Truth, I laughed and I sang, a mere reprobate youth, But now, through a crack in my worldly-wise head, A ray of new light sheds a blaze, VOL. V. And back, with the speed of a zealot, I tread H Of late, through the Strand, as I saunter'd away, For, O, in that curricle, spruce as the day, Majestic as thunder, he roll'd through the air, I gazed, like the Pilgrim in Vanity Fair, Loud bellowed the monsters in Pidcock's abyss, Old vagabond Thames caught the sound, It shook the Adelphı, amaz'd gloomy Dis, The Puritan rises, Philosophy falls, When touched by his Harlequin rod, The Cobler and Prelate, from separate stalls Chant hymns to the young Demigod. The beardless reformer leaves London behind, He wanders o'er woodland and common, And dives into depths theologic to find The Pilgrim of Bunyan felt wiser alarms, 'Twas Death and the Devil, when locked in her arms, The gayety of our poet's measure in the following instance, will sooth the ear, and the tenderness of his sentiments, find its way to the heart. BOOK I, ODE XIX. Mater saeva Cupidinum. Dame Venus, who lives but to vex, To harass this poor head of mine. 'Tis madness her charms to behold, And the heart it enshrines is as cold. Her gay repartees have a grace Good humour alone can impart, Have planted their thorns in my heart. I sang of the heroes of Spain, Who fight in the Parthian mode, Come, Love, bring the graces along, Sweet Ellen, to reign in thy heart, مجھے Every admirer of pathetic poetry remembers Cowper's famous stanza, the burden of which is my Mary. This affectionate tribute to Mrs. Unwin we.believe has been followed up by some hundreds of parodies. Godwin, the author of a forgotten book, called Political Justice, and of some romances, which deserve a better fate than oblivion, has taken it lately into his head that he is a poet, and has actually produced a most woful and pitiful tragedy, in which he reveals his utter ignorance even of the common law of Prosody. Horace in London thus facetiously quizzes the audacious Pretender. BOOK I. ODE XXV. MY GODWIN. Parcius junctas quatiunt fenestras. OUR Temple youth, a lawless train, No longer laud thy solemn strain, Chaucer's a mighty tedious elf, No longer cry the sprites unblest, My Godwin. Thy jaded muse for former feats, Does penance now in quarto sheets, Thy flame at Luna's lamp thou light'st, And still to wield the gray goose quill, My Godwin. The winged steed, a bit of blood, Bore thee, like Trunnion, through the flood, To leave thee sprawling in the mud, My Godwin; But carries now, with martial trot, My Godwin. Nay, nay, forbear these jealous wails, Though he's upborne on Fashion's gales, Thy heavy bark attendant sails, My Godwin. Fate each by different streams conveys, His skiff in Aganippe plays; And thine in Lethe's whirlpool strays, My Godwin. THE BEEHIVE, No. IV.-FOR THE PORT FOLIO. Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci. Keep to the right as the law directs. SUCH is the order of the statute in travelling upon turnpike roads; and it is very satisfactory and convenient that a rule has been established, to which all denominations of travellers must yield obedience. It prevents those altercations and quarrels, which sometimes occurred formerly upon our roads, from the uncertainty in which the question of right was enveloped. teams. It is however to be regretted that the rule was not reversed. Keep to the left as the law directs, would have been as convenient to all descriptions of travellers, and for a large and useful class, incomparably more safe. Wagoners, when they travel on foot, as very frequently occurs, walk on the left side of their Of course, in narrow or difficult roads, when they encounter other teams, they are placed between the two, and are actually in danger of being crushed to death. Accidents of this kind will probably happen. And as prevention is in every case better than cure, and as this is one of those cases, which, after the event has taken place, admit of no cure, it deserves the attention of the legislature to pass an act making the alteration suggested. I am informed, and on the very best authority, that the English rule is-Keep to the left. A new project to restrain mendicity. The rev. Mr. Haweis, an English clergyman, published, in the year 1788, a work on the situation of the poor, with some plans for diminishing the number of beggars. Some of them were very extraordinary, and among the rest one had a very curious novelty to recommend it to the public attention. He proposed to pass an act imposing a penalty, not, as the reader would suppose, upon the mendicant, but on those who supplied his wants.* "Charity covereth a multitude of sins." Ruggles's History of the Poor, vol. ii, p. 36. |