stream of England, produces no effect there. The dwarfish journals, designed only for purposes of despotism, or permitted to keep up a species of sham opposition, in order to disguise more easily the designs of the men in power, are neither pregnant with information nor governed by principle, and have comparatively little weight with the public. The knowledge and science of the capital is therefore circulated in the provinces very slowly by other means.

The Priory, I found from mine host, has been noticed by several French writers; all, however, that tradition has preserved respecting it is, as usual, of vague and uncertain authority as to particulars. I have before spoken of the little river Andelle, which, flowing down the charming valley of that name, runs into the Seine. At some distance up this valley, and no great way below the little village of Fleury sur Andelle, through which the most frequented road to Paris passes, is situated the old Chateau of Pont St. Pierre, to whose lord the surrounding territory belonged in the time of the renowned Charlemagne. This Chateau is on the road from Rouen to Andelys, through the Forest of Longboil. The old lord of the domain had one child, a daughter, young and beautiful, and beloved by a young peasant, a serf of her father's. She also regarded him with an affection equal to that which he cherished for her. In those days unequal matches were almost always accompanied by peril, notwithstanding Chancery Courts were not come into fashion. The father, as might be expected, opposed so unaristocratical a connexion, though it is probable that the dread of contaminating seignorial blood by an unequal marriage was not at that time so prevalent as it became a few centuries afterwards among the feudal chieftains of our Williams and Henries. The father, however, in the present instance was doatingly fond of his daughter; and rather than give a flat denial to the match, consented to it upon an impossible condition, or at least upon the fulfilment of one which he imagined to be so. He promised to give his daughter to her lover, if he would carry her without resting to the summit of the hill, above the valley of Andelle, on which the Priory stands a thing which he then, and indeed any once since, would pronounce to be utterly impracticable, were the lady the most petite and sylph-like of her species. Obstacles in love have, in all ages, but heightened the desire of overcoming them. The youth, nothing daunted, by dint of incredible energy and courage, as well as the possession of no common share of bodily strength, succeeded in arriving at the top of the eminence and depositing his burthen there, when nature, exhausted by the effort, sunk before it. The lover fixed his eyes a moment on his mistress, conscious of his triumph, and then closed them for ever; his mistress died soon afterwards, broken-hearted. The father, too late repentant, thought to expiate his fault, according to the custom of the times, by enriching the church, and erected the Priory des deux Amants, but died of sorrow for the fate of his beloved daughter. That some such incident occurred, is probable from the old seal of the Priory, which bore for an impression the head of a youth and a virgin. Such is the story connected with this place, not more interesting for its natural beauty and the fine views it commands, than for the lovelorn tale attached to it.

At an early hour I retired to rest. After passing through a long and echoing gallery, in which the numerous doors opened from spacious chambers, I was shewn into one for my lodging, of a most gloomy cha

racter, with dark tapestried hangings, a huge fireplace, and a large but comfortable bed. In the fireplace a cheerful wood fire was lighted, that rendered tolerable the atmosphere and appearance of the apartment. In a niche close by, lay a number of folio volumes of Augustin and the Fathers, which had, no doubt, belonged to the former inmates of the Priory, and from their antiquity would have formed no unacceptable present to the Roxburghe Club. Gratifying my curiosity by tumbling over the leaves of one or two of the volumes, but having no inclination to read these specimens of the "laborious trifling" of men in a dark age, I speedily buried in sleep the memory of my day's travel, all thoughts of the Priory, and the tomes of the Fathers. I arose with the dawn, and finding my way out of the building, while its other inmates were buried in sleep, walked among the neighbouring ruins, as the morning sun broke forth with his accustomed brilliancy. The vegetation yet sparkled with the dews of night, and the morning air put forth a delightful freshness. I fell into a train of thought on the tale attached to the spot, and on the durability of traditions, which so much outlive the manual labours of mortals; those things which are longest remembered, or are of the remotest origin, being rarely the offspring of reason, but generally arising from some excess of passion, which touches the feelings of contempora ries, and is marked by the sympathies of posterity. I seated myself on the spot which I afterwards found to have been a species of skittle-ground, where the monks took their exercise. Below me lay, silent as in the sleep of death, the sweet valley of Andelle, which was peculiarly striking in its appearance at that hour, from the breadth of shade and the effects of the light. There I again fell into that sort of reverie which is natural at such moments, but the thoughts it engendered there would be no novelty in imparting.

The valley of Andelle is a delightful seclusion. Besides its sparkling river and several ecclesiastical ruins, its scenery is of a most pleasing character. A chapel attached to the monastery of Fontaine-guerare, in which the lovers were interred, and which was dilapidated at the Revolution, remains still an interesting ruin, and is carefully preserved by the proprietor. Its sight affords that melancholy and romantic feeling to the visitant, which is always experienced in treading upon ground consecrated by an affecting story or "sweet lyric song.' It is immaterial whether the tale which I have related be true or not, though it is most probable there is some foundation for it; but I never felt my faith shaken respecting its truth, when I trod within the supposed precincts. The illusion I experienced there, if the touching history be a fiction,-the nameless charm breathed around the spot, the melancholy meditation upon the past, and certain unutterable feelings arising on the occasion, were worth a world of realities, be they of what kind they may. I shall never enquire if the story be a fiction, or repent, if it be so, the being for an hour or two its dupe. It caused me many pleasing though melancholy sensations, and multiplied associations that are among the most cherished things of life, to one so little enraptured with its gauds as myself. Effects are always of more consequence to us than causes; provided we are pleased and benefited by any thing, of what moment to us is its origin? We have all the good we can receive from it, and to know the remote source of our pleasure, is but to indulge in an idle curiosity, which, whether gratified or not, comes to the same thing in the end.

2 c 2

J.

THE POET'S SUPPER.

Gardez-vous d'imiter ce rimeur furieux,
Qui de ses vains écrits lecteur harmonieux,
Aborde en recitant quiconque le salue,

Et poursuit de ses vers les passans dans la rue :
Il n'est Temple si saint, des Anges respecté,
Qui soit contre sa muse un lieu de sureté.

BOILEAU.

MR. BENJAMIN BRIGGS, the junior partner of a thriving Manchester warehouse in the City, had an unfortunate propensity for tagging rhimes when he ought to have been examining piece-goods, knew much more of metaphors than muslins, arranged a distich with more interest than a diaper, and debased his faculties to tropes and similes, instead of giving up the whole force of his imagination to calicos and cottons. Upon the disease first manifesting itself, his seniors gave him the best advice, warned him of the dismal consequences that would inevitably ensue, if he suffered it to get ahead, formally declared that the credit of their house would not allow them to retain any person convicted of so uncivic and anti-commercial an offence, and announced their intention of dissolving the partnership if he Prudence dicabandoned himself any longer to such idle courses. tated a seeming submission, but nothing was further from his thoughts than a final renunciation of the Muse. He stole at intervals from the counting-house to Castalia, mounted Pegasus instead of his pulpitdesk, and absconded from the worship of Mammon to pay his secret adorations at the shrine of Apollo. The constraint to which he was subjected at home only made him the more communicable abroad.-He laboured under a perfect incontinence of poetry, pouring his stanzas into every ear of which he could get possession, with such an unremitting copiousness, that his friends took alarm at his approach, and if they could not escape him altogether, generally forged some excuse for cutting him short in the midst of the most inimitable ode, Some he or the very first scene of the most touching tragedy. would slily draw aside upon 'Change under pretext of business, and make the blushing statue of Sir Thomas Gresham, or old Guy, privy to his inappropriate rhimes: others he would inveigle into an untenanted upper box at the play; and just as the ghost of Hamlet was describing how his murderer "poured juice of cursed hemlock in his ear," he would distil his own not less unwelcome strophes into his victim's auricle: while some, again, he would lure away on a Sunday from the Park-promenade into the most lonely recesses of KensingtonGardens; when, to their great horror and amazement, he would suddenly draw a tragedy from his pocket and discharge the whole of its contents at their head.

All these expedients being exhausted, and a regular audience becoming utterly hopeless, he at last hit upon the happy suggestion of inviting a few acquaintance of approved literary taste to sup with him at his lodgings in Wych-Street, when he might, as a fair set-off for his lobsters, oysters, punch, and port wine, demand their opinions upon a poem which he meant to offer to the Royal Literary Society,

* Boileau here alludes to the French poet Du Perrier, who, finding him one day at Church, insisted upon reciting to him an ode during the elevation of the host.

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in hopes of obtaining the Fifty-Guinea prize. "As to attempting to write any thing," said Benjamin to his assembled guests, 66 upon such a subject as Dartmoor, which was the first they held out to public competition, I could not have bowed my genius to such a drudgery; you all know, gentlemen, what a blundering business was made of the second proposition, the Fall of Constantinople and Death of Constantine; but I have now submitted to their adoption a noble themethe Capture of Rome by Alaric the Destroyer, and, in the anticipation that they might select it, I have already composed a few hundred lines, upon which I wished you to do me the kindness of offering your remarks with all the freedom and judgment which I may reasonably expect from such approved friends and competent critics." Here he drew a large roll of paper from his coat-pocket, and a blank dismay instantly took possession of every face around him. Each saw the trap into which he had fallen, and each exerted himself to avert the threatened calamity. My dear Sir," exclaimed Mr. Jibe, "this is so kind of you-I am sure I may answer for all present," (here he thrust his tongue into the cheek which was towards the company, and gave that side of his face a most lugubrious drag,) "that we are perfectly delighted at the opportunity of hearing any of your exquisite verses; but had you not better defer the reading for an hour or so, till the supper things are removed--till we have finished another bottle-till "In fact," interrupted Mr. Quill, "our worthy host evidently labours under so severe a cold, attended with a considerable oppression upon his chest, that I should submit the propriety of his deferring altogether, till a more favourable opportunity, the intellectual treat which he has been so good as to propose."-" O, certainly, certainly," cried the rest of the party; "it would really be an imposition on our host's kindness- -happy to take a glass of wine with you, Mr. Briggs-this salad's excellent-capital lobster-famous punchany one seen the Diorama?-did you go to the new farce last night?""Very considerate of you," replied the Poet; "I certainly have a little cold, and we will therefore defer the complete reading till another opportunity; but in the mean time you must allow me just to recite a few select specimens, that you may form some notion of my plan." Objections, pleas, and rejoinders were urged in vain; the inexorable bard unfolded his scroll, and after two or three preliminary hems! proceeded to develope the system upon which it was composed.

"It was my original intention, Gentlemen, to have written in blank verse; but I was alarmed by encountering the dictum of Dr. Johnson, limiting that mode of composition to such as think themselves capable of astonishing, while those who hope only to please must condescend to rhyme."-" There would have been no doubt of your astonishing," interrupted Mr. Jibe, "had you thought proper to adopt that metre: you are really too modest." Mr. Briggs bowed, and proceeded." I was moreover anxious to try upon a more enlarged scale than Pope, who, by the way, has egregiously failed, the principle of imitative harmony, of making the sound an echo to the sense, and of introducing a more general resemblance between the vocal sign and the thing signified, which I proposed to accomplish as much by changing the construction of the metre, as by the choice of expressive words. There can be no doubt that, in the origin of language, all terms bore some affinity to what they represented;-there could have been no other

mode or motive of selection in the infancy of the world than in that of individuals. And what do we observe in children? They invariably name animals from the noise which they make, calling a dog a bowwow, a cat a mi-au, a cow a moo-cow, a lamb a baa-lamb, and a cock a cock-a-doodle doo. This is the primitive language of nature, like crying, laughing, and certain interjections, common to all nations. The cuckoo, pewet, and other birds, obviously receive their denomination from their cry; and what can be more happy than Ronsard's imitation of the song of the Sky-lark:

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Elle quindée du zephire,

Sublime en l'air vire et revire,
Et y declique un joli cris,
Qui rit, guerit, et tire l'ire

Des esprits emneux que je n'ecris.'

There are numerous words which as unquestionably have been Chosen from their resemblance to the noise they designate, such as Tumble, coo, yell, crash, crack, hiss, hoot, roar, murmur, simmer, and the like. It is true that ideas do not admit of an exact echo

-“Which, however, is no loss to you," interrupted Mr. Jibe. “Oh, none whatever," resumed Briggs, not perceiving the sneer that was conveyed," since, if we admit that

'Music resembles poetry, in each

Are nameless graces which no rules can teach,'

it may be sufficient to remind you, that Handel contrived to express accurately upon the organ that sublime command-' God said, Let there be light, and there was light;' and composed one of the Psalms with so happy a precision, that every separate verse was distinctly recognisable. I sce, however, that you are impatient for a specimen of my poem, and I will therefore recite a few lines from the introduction, the metre of which is intended to represent the bustle and animation of a siege.

Now Alaric's standards are proudly unfurl'd

Round the seven-hill'd city, once queen of the world;
The siege is close press'd-round the ramparts are pour'd,
Gigantic and grim, a barbarian horde,

Who scowl on the grandeur of Rome with amaze,
And on palaces, castles, and fanes as they gaze,

In her strength and her beauty they bid her not trust,
For her turreted head shall be dragg'd in the dust.
But the Romans confiding in bulwarks and gods,

Not an obolus caring for enemies' odds,

Think the battering-ram a ridiculous flam,
An assault a mere hoax, and a capture a sham.

So they giggle and laugh, dance, revel, and quaff,
As, for sacrifice meant, does a garlanded calf.”

"Fine! beautiful! exquisite!" ejaculated several voices at once. "Do you observe the effect of the lively metre when I come to express the festivity of the besotted citizens? So they giggle and laugh, dance, revel, and quaff.'-Does that strike you?”– Oh, inimitable !— an inimitable imitation!" exclaimed Mr. Jibe; "but I do not exactly see how a calf can be said to giggle, and laugh, and dance."-" But it bleats, Mr. Jibe; which, under such circumstances, as it is a pleasurable sound, may be deemed equivalent to laughter."-" Very likely, very likely; you must know much better than I what a calf means, and what