Which ever you please-but my lady advises

I mention it with submission

French Commerce, endowed with three capital prizes,
So tumble your silver and fish in!
Some prize you may noose,

Or sell if you choose,

But I'll see the game out-although 1 should lose.

Now deal out one pack, keep the other aback,
Face and call for each answering card;
Ace of hearts! here it is: come do not be slack,
For your set I've a special regard:
Will you sell? I can't tell ;-
Will you buy? no, not I-

I'm afraid you have glimpsed at the prizes so sly.*

What again? must I give up my dearest of hearts?
Yes, faith! you must give it to me;
What a pleasure this long hand of diamonds imparts!
Nay, boast not events till you see,
You may lose all the set,

And another may get,

Though few are his cards, the advantage as yet.

you won?

How much have you lost? how much have
No dumbee this time if you please;
The last of our fun, the game is done-
On the whole of the prizes I seize :
They are mine-they are mine!
Tis a game divine,

I shall dream of such luck as in bed 1 recline.

So much for Plagiarism.

ACERBUS.

Ат

AT pages 226 and 227 of the octavo edition of NOEL BY RON'S CONVERSATIONS, as reported by Capt. Medwin, is the following passage :

"Who would not wish to have been born two or three centuries later?' said he, putting into my hand an Italian letter. Here is a savant of Bologna, who pretends to have discovered the manner of directing balloons by means of a rudder, and tells me he is ready to explain the nature of his

* Cheating is the life of a Round Game,

invention to our government. I suppose we shall soon travel by air-vessels; make air instead of sea-voyages; and at length find our way to the moon, in spite of the want of atmosphere.'

• Cælum ipsum petimus stultitid,' said I. There is not so much folly as you may suppose, and a vast deal of poetry in the idea,' replied Lord Byron.

In the 5th No. of The Cave (Manuscript Edition) published in June, 1822, the author introduces a dialogue upon the very ode of Horace (liber 1, Ode 3) quoted by Capt. Medwin; and this is the deduction of one of the interlocutors :—

"The audax Japeti genus ignem fraude malá gentibus intulit, post ignem ætherea domo subductum' might give us some idea of a Steam-packet bringing over the plague from the Levant, whence macies et nova febrium terris incubuit cohors.' And the Balloon might be figured in the

Expertus vacuum Dædalus aera;
Calum ipsum petimus stultitia.

Lo! the Steam-boat already
Triumphing derides,

On her course sure and steady,
Calm-tempestor tides!
And the merchant ere long

Will, on board his BALLOON,

Strike the balance of trade
Between us and the Moon.

VIDE NORTH DEVON MAGAZINE, VOL. I, page 75.

A Patent Tinder-box.

There are few evils in this life which have not their attendant consolations. Shakespear says one may find

'Sermons in stones, and good in every thing'

A man was complaining that in the night his mouth was parched as dry as a tinder-box. What a convenience,' said his friend. Convenience? Yes, you can strike a light with your tongue and teeth.

Sarum and Barum.

Since with language our ancestors ventured to palter,
In changing their SARUM to Salisbury,

Our billiard and ball-rooms might tempt us to alter,
In like manner, BARUM to Ballsbury.

* "Steam-engines will convey him to the moon,”---DON JUAN, Can, x. St. 2.

Unreadables.

There are two articles in the Quarterly Reviews which I never cut open for perusal, viz. The Catholic Question,' and The Slave Trade.' In the Monthly Magazines I never look at The List of New Patents,' or The Meteorological Report.' What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba ?

Sir Michael.-A Character.

Although you should not like all,
Gentlemen me allow
To introduce Sir Michael,

In a way-I don't know how.

Sir Michael in his appearance

Is like an Old English Letter;-
Though he be one of the queer ones,

When you know him you'll like him the better.
In Sir Michael's house you're parlored,
Through an old Baronial hall-
But you must not expect a star-Lord
To meet you there at all.

Gentlemen, be at home!

Make yourselves free and easy,

Sir Michael may turn his back to you-
But he won't whip round and seize you.

Gentleman, lawyer, farmer,

United all in one!

His stubbles and hounds his charm-hour,
His joy of life, the gun.

The law,' says Mich., was made on a plan
To benefit the state of man!'

And then because Sir Mich. has said
"Tis thus, 'tis thus as plain's a spade.

In short, such a character you, sir,
In all your life, never knew, sir.
So gentlemen strike all

To honest Sir Michael!

Lee Bay.

One would think Horace had spent an Autumn at Lee Bay,

and Warcombe, near Ilfracombe, witness some of the introductory lines of his 16th Epistle, book 1st.

*

Scribetur tibi forma-et situs agri.
Continui montes, ni dissocientur opacâ
Valle, sed ut veniens dextrum latus aspiciat sol,
Lævum discedens curru fugiente vaporet.

-multâ dominum juvet umbrâ.

Fons etiam

Hæc latebræ dulces, etiam, si credis, amænæ,
Incolumem tibi me præstant Septembribus horis !

Oh! had my pen poetic grace

Dear Lee before your eye to place,
I'd paint the varied charms that meet
In my Autumnal calm retreat!

Ranges of hills, by shadowy vale
Disparted-yet the sunbeams pale
Of morn their western summits hail;
And on their eastern peak the day
Leaves, rich in gold, its parting ray.

At noon dark woods around me close
A grateful shade ;-whence babbling flows
A slender brook to join the sea;
Such are, my friend, the charms of Lee,
That through the Autumn shelter me,
In health to welcome Spring and Thee!

Miss-Translation.

Now and then the French, like other unfounded scholars, guess at the meaning of a Latin passage. A gentleman being desired by a lady near him to translate the motto over the curtain in a theatre,

RIDENDO CASTIGAT MORES,*

said, Le rideau cache les mœurs, Madame,' as if he had said, in English, The curtain hides the morals of the players!

Nostradamus the Conjuror.

Nostradamus a soi-disant prophet and conjuror, gained great credit by the supposed fulfilment of one of his predictions.

* By ridicule the stage corrects the manners of men.

Being ordered by Henry the Second of France, to cast the nativity of the young Princes he wrote

Le lion jeune le vieux surmontera,

En champ bellique par singulier duel.

The young lion will conquer the old one in the field, in single

combat.

It so happened that, the very year ensuing, king Henry did die of a wound he received at a tournament, in single combat. But to make the prophecy good the king ought to have fallen by the hands of the young prince, which was not the case. This did not escape the notice of the French poet Jodelle, and he wrote the following Epigram upon the pretended soothsayer's name :—

'Nostra damus, cum falsa damus, nam fallere nostrum est, Et cum falsa damus, nil nisi nostra damus.'

In English,

I give my own when lies I give, for lying is my art,

And when I falsehood pass on you, but with myself I part.

I give my own when lies I give, at lying I am gay,
And when I falsehood pass on you, I give myself away.

In our last number we gave a specimen of Dld English Letter writing, to which we now add specimens still more interesting. Most of our readers are aware that we had once a very wise king called James 1st. The following letters will certify that he was a very great fool-about some things. It is matter of chronology that he sent his son Charles to seek a wife in Spain under the prudent guidance of the prudent Duke of Buckingham. It is believed that Charles fell in love with the princess Henrietta (afterwards his wife) at Paris, on his journey, and that the Spanish business (thenceforward) was mere make-believe. These letters shew that the Prince and Favorite thought more of cutting a dash, than of consulting Dad's pocket;-a vice indifferently well reformed in modern days.

Mr. Meade to Sir Martin Stuteville, with News from Spain. London, Aprill 25th, 1623.

MR. Killegrew (who about a month ago was sent into Spain) returned hither on Saturday last with assurance of the Prince's welfare; that on our Palm sunday, being their Easter day, he first spake with the Lady Infanta; hoped