Of late, another eye and ear

Would mark thy form, thy music hear :
Alas! how soon our pleasures fly,

Returning never!

That ear is deaf-that friendly eye
Is closed for ever!

Be thou, then, now, my friend, my guide,
And humming wisdom by my side,

Teach me so patiently to bear

Hot-water troubles,

That they may end, like thine, in air,
And turn to bubbles.

Let me support misfortune's fire
Unhurt, and, when I fume with ire,
Whatever friend my passions sees
And near me lingers,
Let him still handle me with ease,
Nor burn his fingers.

O may my memory, like thy front,
When I am cold, endure the brunt
Of vitriol envy's keen assaults,

And shine the brighter,
And ev'ry rub but make my faults
Appear the lighter!

TO THE LADIES OF ENGLAND.

BEAUTIES! (for, dress'd with so much taste,
All may with such a term be graced,)—
Attend the friendly stanza,

Which deprecates the threaten'd change
Of English modes for fashions strange,
And French extravaganza.

What!-when her sons renown have won
In arts and arms, and proudly shone
A pattern to the nations,

Shall England's recreant daughters kneel
At Gallic shrines, and stoop to steal
Fantastic innovations?

Domestic-simple-chaste--sedate,

Your fashions now assimilate
Your virtues and your duties
With all the dignity of Rome,
The Grecian Graces find a home
In England's classic Beauties.

When we behold so fit a shrine,
We deem its inmate all divine,

;

And thoughts licentious bridle
But if the case be tasteless, rude,
Grotesque, and glaring-we conclude
It holds some worthless idol.

Let Gallia's nymphs of ardent mind,
To every wild extreme inclined,
In folly be consistent ;

Their failings let their modes express,
From simpleness of soul and dress
For ever equi-distant.

True to your staid and even port,
Let mad extremes of every sort

With steady scorn be treated;
Nor by art's modish follies mar
The sweetest, loveliest work by far
That nature has completed :-
--

For oh!-if in the world's wide round
One peerless object may be found,

A something more than human ;
The faultless paragon confess'd,
May in one line be all expressed,-

A WELL-DRESS'D ENGLISH WOMAN.

A FATHER'S GOSSIP-A CHILD'S DEATH.

"O thou wilt come no more,Never, never, never, never, never!"

SHAKSPEARE.

A MOTHER'S affection for her infant is involuntary -a blind, unreasoning instinct, implanted by nature for the preservation of the species, and directed with additional energy towards those who would seem least to bespeak her tenderness-the mutilated in body or mind, the cripple or the idiot, precisely because they have most need of her protection. Compassion may influence men to the same good offices, but it does not, as with mothers, blind them to the defects of its object; there is no obliquity of judgment, no instinct, no preference, in their attentions: they are prompted by justice or humanity, rather than affection.

Abstractedly from the wide range of reflection it excites, I myself see nothing captivating in any infant. It is powerful in the silent appeal of its helplessness, rich in past and future suggestion; but there is little of present humanity in its powers and aspect. My own always appear ugly to me in this intermediate state. With more than an animal's debility, they have less of its substitutes for reason, and none of that faculty itself. There is "no speculation in those eyes that they do glare withal;" their movements are snatching and automatical, the functions that they ex

ercise are by no means prepossessing, and their cry altogether feline and unmusical. I cannot feel with any intensity my relationship to beings whose nature exhibits so little similarity with my own. But when

a moral sanction is given to the awakened tenderness that has hitherto been dormant,-when the roses unfold their first transparent bloom in the cheek, when the eyes sparkle with expression, and the whole countenance, animated with intelligence, flatters our vanity by its reputed resemblance to our own, or our love by its incipient developement of the mother's beauty; when, in addition to these attractions, the expanding mind throws every day some new tendril around our heart,—who but a parent can conceive the delight with which the existence of the child becomes gradually incorporated and interfused with his own? A passionate lover of the chace in my younger days, I have heard the gallant chiding of the dogs flung back from the woodlands and hollow hill-sides with an ecstasy not inferior to his, who

In

was with Hercules and Cadmus once, When in the woods of Thrace they bay'd the boar."

my morning rambles through the dewy meadows, I have often stopped short, and exclaimed with thrilling ear

"What matins like the larks', who heavenwards climb,

And pour down lighted music from above?

In the serene soothing moonlights of summer, I have been almost afraid to breathe, lest I should dissolve the enchantment, and have waited the dying away of the music before I have ventured to whisper to myself,

"What midnight serenades so rapturous

As the lone nightingale's, whose soul of love
Outgushes with her song?"

and beneath the mellowing dome of the largest theatre in the most musical capital of Europe, rich harmonies have melted into mine ear; dulcet female voices, as of angels, blending their sweetness with the symphonious swell of manly intonation, and organ and harp, and "instruments that made melodious chime:" but I protest, in all the sincerity of literal truth, that I never heard music so tuneful to the ear, so enchanting to the heart, so dissolving and overcoming to the whole soul, as the first prattlings of a beloved child. Does my reader recollect the story of Agesilaus, King of Sparta, surprised by embassadors when he was upon all-fours playing with his children?

Is he himself a father? if so, I make no apology for continuing to ride my hobby-horse.

Yes! it is indeed exquisite to watch the dawnings of reason, the blossoming and blowing of the intellect; but let every parent beware of the bitter rebuke which is impending over his paternal pride, if he possess a daughter of precious talent-as I did once! Flattering but fatal gift! resembling the hectic flush upon the cheek, the beautiful efflorescence that announces inward disease and decay. Twice did the grim King of Terrors stretch forth his abhorred hand, -its shadow fell upon her still blooming features, like the passing cloud that throws its lurid frown upon a rose, and she bent in meek resignation; but our tears, or our unceasing vigils, or our prayers, pre