Poor Alphonso! I was given to understand that he was undoubtedly a genius, and wrote well, for it was generally suspected that he was a little beside himself. Indeed, what I afterwards saw seemed to favour this surmise, for his sentiments were occasionally inclining to be watery, just as though they had slipped through the crack in his head.

In the next page to Alphonso, my admiration was excited by a remarkably fine spashy-dashy drawing, so boldly touched that I had some difficulty in penetrating the mystery of what it meant. I was told, however, by my pretty companion, that it was an assemblage of desolate rocks and rolling clouds, with the ocean far beneath, and a rude grave in the foreground, bearing the initials of the artist, and intended as an illustration of some suicidal stanzas by the same hand. This star it appeared had likewise been shining a little too near the moon, though it was affected in a different manner. Alphonso was a gentle being, and was satisfied to fade away like a dying daisy; but the suicide man was a determined misanthrope of the By

ron school, and kept his friends in a turmoil lest he should wring his own neck. He had met with two or three disappointments in love, and had been choused out of happiness till he had very properly learnt to despise it. Every thing he drew or wrote had a smack of bitterness, and was particularly fine for a bold indication of what is called freethinking; but making designs for his grave, which were usually in cross roads, and his numerous epitaphs, of which I counted about twenty, were, out of sight, his most congenial occupation. Most willingly would I treat the reader with some of the former, but I have not yet been long enough apprenticed to my new avocation to be much of a hand at engraving, and the suicide's style is very difficult to copy. I will give him one of the epitaphs, however, and welcome.

Ay, call me back to life again

With lamentations o'er my tomb

I cannot hear the hateful strain,

And, if I could, I would not come.

There is something very striking in this obstinate determination expressed in such sullen

brevity, and I could perceive a pensive irresolution in the eye of my young friend, as to which of her two heroes should be sacrificed. It no doubt requires much deliberation, and I hope and trust that she will not decide hastily. I inquired after the suicide yesterday, and found that he was still living.

After this, I was introduced to some witty conceits by a middle-aged rubicund roué, who cocked his hat and his eye, and set up for a wag. He practised chiefly in the Anacreontic line, and would have been excellent had he not sometimes been "a little too bad." My lady of the Album wished the odious creature would leave her book alone; and, before I had time to become better acquainted with him, she laughed and blushed, and slapped it together, with a vow that I should not proceed unless I promised to pass him over. I regret that this circumstance prevents me from favouring the public with more than two stanzas.

And art thou not content to view
My sorrows at thy feet?

And must I write the record too,

For triumph more complete?

No, rather on this book divine
Receive my vow profound-
'Twere sweet to be a page of thine,

If cherish'd, clasp'd, and bound.

It was quite a relief to turn from this intense study to a series of flower drawings by a gentle young lady who had not been prevailed upon to exhibit without great solicitation. She was, however, one of my favourite's long string of bosom friends and confidants-the sweetest sympathizer in all her cares, and unhappily attached to Alphonso, who had doomed her, like himself, to a willow wreath. There was no doing without such a dear contributor as this, and, indeed, her performances were interesting to a degree. It was pleasingly melancholy to behold them. Her roses were as pale as if they had been in love themselves, and the butterflies which fluttered around them were one and all dying of consumptions. There was no positive colouring or touching-softness was her peculiar characteristic, and any appearance of vigour would have been rejected as absolutely indelicate. I was told that the bouquets were for the most part fashioned for the indication

of some tender sentiment, or the exhibition of some beloved face which was formed by the outline of the flowers; and, after a diligent search, I found Alphonso peeping through a broken heart's-ease, and the fair artist, hard by, in a flower of love-lies-bleeding. There was an affecting simplicity in these conceits which perfectly atoned for the projectress's want of poetical talent. She had no particular knack at originality, though she was thought to select with great taste. She had copied all the performances of Hafiz and the Princess Olive from the Morning Post, and several privately circulated pieces, which were supposed to be the production of Lord Byron himself. I ventured to differ upon some of these, but my young friend satisfied me of their genuineness, by assuring me that they had been transcribed from an album somewhere near Mont Blanc.

From hence I wandered through a great many pages of excellent riddles, with which I will not treat my reader, lest he should stop to puzzle them out-numerous copies of Madonnas and children, of which the only defect was a trifling inclination to squint, it being very