A POTHECARY on a white horse

Rode by on his vocations,

And the Devil thought of his old Friend
DEATH in the Revelations.

He saw a cottage with a double coach-house,
A cottage of gentility !

And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin
Is pride that apes humility.

He went into a rich bookseller's shop,
Quoth he! we are both of one college
For I myself sate like a cormorant once
Fast by the tree of knowledge*.

And all amid them stood the TREE OF LIFE
High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit

Of vegetable gold (query paper-money:) and next to Life
Our Death, the TREE OF KNOWLEDGE, grew fast by.-

So clomb this first grand thief-
Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life
Sat like a cormorant.-PAR. LOST. IV.

The allegory here is so apt, that in a catalogue of various readings obtained from collating the MSS. one might expect to find it noted, that for "LIFE" Cod. quid. habent, "TRADE."

Down the river there plied, with wind and tide,
A pig, with vast celerity,

And the Devil look'd wise as he saw how the while, It cut its own throat. There! quoth he with a smile Goes "England's commercial prosperity."

Though indeed THE TRADE, i. e. the bibliopolic, so called κάτ' εξόχην may be regarded as Life sensu eminentiori ; a suggestion, which I owe to a young retailer in the hosiery line, who on hearing a description of the net profits, dinner parties, country houses, &c. of the trade, exclaimed, "Ay! that's what I call LIFE now!"-This "Life, our Death," is thus happily contrasted with the fruits of Authorship. Sic nos non nobis mellificamus Apes.

Of this poem, which with the Fire, Famine and Slaughter first appeared in the Morning Post, the three first stanzas, which are worth all the rest, and the ninth, were dictated by Mr. Southey. See Apologetic Preface. Vol. 1. p. 337. Between the ninth and the concluding stanza, two or three are omitted, as grounded on subjects that have lost their interest-and for better reasons.

If any one should ask, who General meant, the Author begs leave to inform him, that he did once see a redfaced person in a dream whom by the dress he took for a General; but he might have been mistaken, and most certainly he did not hear any names mentioned. In simple verity, the Author never meant any one, or indeed any thing but to put a concluding stanza to his doggerel.

As he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw A solitary cell,

And the devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint

For improving his prisons in Hell.

He saw with consternation,

And back to hell his way did he take,

*

For the devil thought by a slight mistake

It was general conflagration.

*

Love lies buried where 'twas born

Ah faithless nymph! think it no scorn

If in my fancy I presume

To name thy bosom poor Love's Tomb,
And on that Tomb to read the line,

Here lies a Love that once was mine,

But took a chill, as I divine,
And died at length of a decline.

94

CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT.

CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT.

SINCE all, that beat about in Nature's range,
Or veer or vanish; why should'st thou remain
The only constant in a world of change,
O yearning THOUGHT, that liv'st but in the brain?
Call to the HOURS, that in the distance play,
The faery people of the future day-
Fond THOUGHT! not one of all that shining swarm
Will breathe on thee with life-enkindling breath,
Till when, like strangers shelt'ring from a storm,
Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death!
Yet still thou haunt'st me: and though well I see,
She is not thou, and only thou art she,
Still, still as though some dear embodied Good,
Some living Love before my eyes there stood
With answering look a ready ear to lend,
I mourn to thee and say "Ah! loveliest Friend!
"That this the meed of all my toils might be,
" To have a home, an English home, and thee!
" Vain repetition! Home and Thou are one.
"The peacefull'st cot, the moon shall shine upon,