CATHERINE. Well, Sir; you have said quite enough to make me despair of finding a "John Anderson, my jo, John," to totter down the hill of life with. ity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of guise of playful raillery, and the countless other modesty which will arise in delicate munds, when infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial they are conscious of possessing the same or the feeling. correspondent excellence in their own characters. In short, there must be a mind, which, while it feels the beautiful and the excellent in the beloved as its own, and by right of love appropriates it, can call Goodness its Playfellow, and dares make sport of time and infirmity, while, in the person of a thousand-foldly endeared partner, we feel for aged VIRTUE the caressing fondness that belongs to the INNOCENCE of childhood, and repeat the same attentions and tender courtesies as had been dictated by the same affection to the same object when attired in feminine loveliness or in manly beauty. ELIZA. What a soothing-what an elevating idea! CATHERINE. If it be not only an idea. FRIEND. FRIEND. Not so! Good men are not, I trust, so much scarcer than good women, but that what another would find in you, you may hope to find in another. But well, however, may that boon be rare, the possession of which would be more than an adequate reward for the rarest virtue. ELIZA. Surely, he who has described it so beautifully, must have possessed it? FRIEND. If he were worthy to have possessed it, and had |believingly anticipated and not found it, how bitter (Then, after a pause of a few minutes). Yes, yes! that boon, life's richest treat, Crown of his cup, and garnish of his dish! At all events, these qualities which I have enumer- the disappointment! ated, are rarely found united in a single individual. How much more rare must it be, that two such individuals should meet together in this wide world under circumstances that admit of their union as Husband and Wife! A person may be highly estimable on the whole, nay, amiable as neighbor, friend, housemate-in short, in all the concentric circles of attachment, save only the last and inmost; and yet from how many causes be estranged from the highest perfection in this! Pride, coldness or fastidiousness of nature, worldly cares, an anxious or ambitious disposition, a passion for display, a sullen temper-one or the other-too often proves "the dead fly in the compost of spices," and any one is enough to unfit it for the precious balm of unction. For some mighty good sort of people, too, there is not seldom a sort of And Fancy must be fed! solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, that Now so it chanced-from wet or dry, keeps itself alive by sucking the paws of its own self- It boots not how-I know not why— importance. And as this high sense, or rather sensa-She miss'd her wonted food: and quickly tion of their own value is, for the most part, ground- Poor Fancy stagger'd and grew sickly. ed on negative qualities, so they have no better means Then came a restless state, 't wixt yea ar! 120 of preserving the same but by negatives-that is, by His faith was fix'd, his heart all ebb and Яw, not doing or saying any thing, that might be put down Or like a bark, in some half-shelter'd bay for fond, silly, or nonsensical,-or (to use their own Above its anchor driving to and fro. phrase) by never forgetting themselves, which some of their acquaintance are uncharitable enough to think the most worthless object they could be employed in remembering. ELIZA (in answer to a whisper from CATHERINE). To a hair! He must have sate for it himself. Save me from such folks! But they are out of the question. FRIEND. Faith asks her daily bread, That boon, which but to have possess'd Doubts toss'd him to and fro; True! but the same effect is produced in thousands counted, and distinctly remembered. The HAPPINESS Thin and hueless as a ghost, Where was it then, the sociable sprite O bliss of blissful hours! The boon of Heaven's decreeing, Dwelt the First Husband and his sinless Mate! THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO. Of late, in one of those most weary hours, The love, the joyaunce, and the gallantry! Or lent a lustre to the earnest scan Of manhood, musing what and whence is man Thanks, gentle artist! now I can descry Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share. The brightness of the world, O thou once free, But casts in happier moulds the slumberer's dream, Gardens, where flings the bridge its airy span, Gazed by an idle eye with silent might A tremulous warmth crept gradual o'er my chest, And Nature makes her happy home with man; Bow unto God in CHRIST- in Christ, my ALL! The Heir of Heaven, henceforth I dread not Death, Is that a Death-bed, where the CHRISTIAN lies? FRAGMENTS FROM THE WRECK OF MEMORY: OR PORTIONS OF POEMS COMPOSED IN EARLY MANHOOD. NOTE.-It may not be without use or interest to youthful, and especially to intelligent female readers *Boccaccio claimed for himself the glory of having first introduced the works of Homer to his countrymen. I know few more striking or more interesting proofs of the overwhelming influence which the study of the Greek and Roman classics exercised on the judgments, feelings, and imagi nations of the literati of Europe at the commencement of the restoration of literature, than the passage in the Filocopo of Boccaccio; where the sage instructor, Racheo, as soon as the young prince and the beautiful girl Biancafiore had learned their letters, sets them to study the Holy Book, Ovid's Art of Love. Incomincio Racheo a mettere il suo officio in essecuzione con intera sollecitudine. E loro, in breve tempo, insegnato a conoscer le lettere, fece legere il santo libro d' Ovvidio, nel quale il sommo poeta mostra, come i santi fuochi di Ve nere si debbano ne freddi cuori occcndere." 16 of poetry, to observe, that in the attempt to adapt the Greek metres to the English language, we must begin by substituting quality of sound for quantity — that is, accentuated or comparatively emphasized syllables, for what, in the Greek and Latin verse, are named long, and of which the prosodial mark is; and vice versa, unaccentuated syllables for short, marked ˇ. the spondee, composed of two long syllables, and the Now the hexameter verse consists of two sorts of feet, dactyl, composed of one long syllable followed by two short. The following verse from the Psalms, is a rare instance of a perfect hexameter (i. e. line of six feet) in the English language : Gōd came up with a | shōut: our | Lord with the sound of a | trumpēt. But so few are the truly spondaic words in our language, such as Egypt, uproar, turmoil, &c., that we are compelled to substitute, in most instances, the trochee, or ă, i. e. such words as merry, lightly, &c. for the proper spondee. It need only be added, that in the hexameter the fifth foot must be a dactyl, and the sixth a spondee, or trochee. I will end this note with two hexameter lines, likewise from the Psalms. There is a river tho | flōwing where | ōf shall | gladden the city. Hāllě | lūjah thě | cītỷ of | Gōd Jēhōvăh! hăth | blest hěr.] I. HYMN TO THE EARTH. EARTH! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother, Hail! O Goddess, thrice hail! Blest be thou! and, blessing, I hymn thee! Forth, ye sweet sounds! from my harp, and my voice shall float on your surges― Soar thou aloft, O my soul! and bear up my song on thy pinions. Travelling the vale with mine eyes-green meadows, and lake with green island, Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing in brightness, Thrilled with thy beauty and love, in the wooded slope of the mountain, Here, Great Mother, I lie, thy child with its head on thy bosom! Playful the spirits of noon, that creep or rush through thy tresses: Green-haired Goddess! refresh me; and hark! as they hurry or linger, Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it with musical Guardian and friend of the Moon, O Earth, whom IV. THE OVIDIAN ELEGIAC METRE DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED. the Comets forget not, Yea, in the measureless distance wheel round, and again they behold thee! Fadeless and young (and what if the latest birth of Creation? Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon thee enamored! Say, mysterious Earth! O say, great Mother and Goddess! Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap was ungirdled, Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he wooed thee and won thee! Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes of morning! Deep was the shudder, O Earth! the throe of thy self-retention : July thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at thy centre! Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; and forthwith Myriad myriads of lives teemed forth from the mighty embracement, Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impelled by thou- Beneath the moon in gentle weather sand-fold instincts, Filled, as a dream, the wide waters: the rivers sang But oh! the Sky, and all its forms, how quiet! on their channels; The things that seek the Earth, how full of noise and riot! Laughed on their shores the hoarse seas: the yearn ing ocean swelled upward: Young life lowed through the meadows, the woods, and the echoing mountains, Wandered bleating in valleys, and warbled in blossoming branches. LOVE'S GHOST AND RE-EVANITION. AN ALLEGORIC ROMANCE. Like a lone ARAB, old and blind, And now he cowers with low-hung head aslant, And listens for some human sound in vain : That once had made that heart so warm, And Love stole in, in maiden form, Toward my arbor-seat! She bent and kissed her sister's lips, The Asps of the sand-deserts, anciently named Dipsads. LIGHT-HEARTEDNESS IN RHYME. "I expect no sense, worth listening to, from the man who never dares talk nonsense."- Anon. 1. THE REPROOF AND REPLY: OR, THE FLOWER-THIEF'S APOLOGY, FOR A ROBBERY COMMITTED IN MR. AND MRS. —'S GARDEN, ON SUNDAY MORNING, 25TH OF MAY, 1833, BETWEEN THE HOURS OF ELEVEN AND TWELVE. "FIE, Mr. Coleridge!—and can this be you? Such sounds, of late, accusing fancy brought "Fair dame! a visionary wight, Say, can you blame ?-No! none, that saw and heard, Thus all conspired-each power of eye and ear, And if I pluck'd each flower that sweetest blows'Who walks in sleep, needs follow must his nose. Thus long accustomed on the twy-fork'd hill,* II. IN ANSWER TO A FRIEND'S QUESTION. Her attachment may differ from yours in degree, Provided they are both of one kind; But friendship, how tender so ever it be, Gives no accord to love, however refined. Love, that meets not with love, its true nature revealing, Grows ashamed of itself, and demurs: If you cannot lift hers up to your state of feeling, You must lower down your state to hers. III. LINES TO A COMIC AUTHOR, ON AN ABU WHAT though the chilly wide-mouth'd quacking Men called him-maugre all his wit and worth, IV. AN EXPECTORATION, OR SPLENETIC EXTEMPORE, ON MY JOYFUL DEPARTURE FROM THE CITY OF COLOGNE. As I am Rhymer, And now at least a merry one, Mr. MUM's Rudesheimer t And the church of St. Geryon The English Parnassus is remarkable for its two summits of unequal height, the lower denominated Hampstead, the higher Highgate. †The apotheosis of Rhenish wine. |