Dear Hal, if thou lov'st me, as Falstaff would say,
Let carking old Care be invaulted below;

And, if he will rise, when you wish to be gay,
Bid him bring you a bottle of Château Margaot.

Then let him, when Bacchus and Pleasure combine
To banish the woes of this whirligig world,
Like Clarence, obtain his quietus in wine,
So, in the Red Sea shall his spirit be hurl'd.

The bibbers of water are drunkards, not we,
The tide overwhelming their reason divine,

For man's like a beast, drinking water, and he
Must be senseless, indeed, who refuses his wine.

Let Lydia, the lovely enchantress, appear
And breathe to her harp the effusions of MoORE:
Enjoying these transports, oh, what should we fear
While Wit can exalt us or Beauty allure?

Then cease my dear quidnunc, to groan at the news,
Nor mourn o'er the records of national sorrow,

But, if you must study, oh, study to lose,

In this day's enjoyment, the thought of to-morrow.

The wit and ingenuity of our arch imitator are sometimes employed at the expense of their worships and their reverences. Mrs. Hannah More, however, will hardly frown at the following humorous verses. It may be remarked, by the way, that the two first stanzas are in the very spirit of Flaccus; and a mere English reader, may be pretty well satisfied with looking, as a pedant would say, even at the wrong side of the tapestry.

BOOK I. ODE XXXIV.

Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens.

Inveigled by Hume, from the temple of Truth,
From Piety's sheepfold a stray lamb,

I laughed and I sang, a mere reprobate youth,
As seldom at church, as sir Balaam.

But now, through a crack in my worldly-wise head,

A ray of new light sheds a blaze,

VOL. V.

And back, with the speed of a zealot, I tread
The wide metaphysical maze.

H

Of late, through the Strand, as I saunter'd away,
A curricle gave me new life,

For, O, in that curricle, spruce as the day,
Sat Coelebs in Search of a Wife!

Majestic as thunder, he roll'd through the air,
His horses were rapidly driven,

I gazed, like the Pilgrim in Vanity Fair,
When Faithful was snatched into Heaven.

Loud bellowed the monsters in Pidcock's abyss,

Old vagabond Thames caught the sound,

It shook the Adelphı, amaz'd gloomy Dis,
And Styx swore an oath under ground.

The Puritan rises, Philosophy falls,

When touched by his Harlequin rod,

The Cobler and Prelate, from separate stalls

Chant hymns to the young Demigod.

The beardless reformer leaves London behind,

He wanders o'er woodland and common,

And dives into depths theologic to find
That darkest of swans-a white woman.

The Pilgrim of Bunyan felt wiser alarms,
His darling at home could not bind him,

'Twas Death and the Devil, when locked in her arms,
'Twas Heaven,-when he left her behind him.

The gayety of our poet's measure in the following instance, will sooth the ear, and the tenderness of his sentiments, find its way to the heart.

BOOK I, ODE XIX.

Mater saeva Cupidinum.

Dame Venus, who lives but to vex,
And Bacchus, the dealer in wine,
Unite with the love of the sex,

To harass this poor head of mine.
Sweet Ellen's the cause of my wo,

'Tis madness her charms to behold,
Her bosom's as white as the snow,

And the heart it enshrines is as cold.

Her gay repartees have a grace

Good humour alone can impart,
The roses, that bloom in her face,

Have planted their thorns in my heart.
Fair Venus, who sprang from the sea,
Despising the haunts of renown,
Leaves Brighton, to frolic with me,
And spends the whole winter in town,

I sang of the heroes of Spain,

Who fight in the Parthian mode,
The goddess grew sick at my strain,
And handed to Vulcan my ode;
Forbear, she exclaim'd, silly elf,
With haughty Bellona to rove,
Leave Spain to take care of himself,
Thy song is of Ellen and love.

Come, Love, bring the graces along,
That Ellen may melt at my woes,
Let fluent RouSSEAU gild my tongue,
And, Chesterfield turn out my toes.
Ah, no, I must wield other arms,

Sweet Ellen, to reign in thy heart,
When Love owes to Nature his charms,
How vain are the lessons of Art!

مجھے

Every admirer of pathetic poetry remembers Cowper's famous stanza, the burden of which is my Mary. This affectionate tribute to Mrs. Unwin we.believe has been followed up by some hundreds of parodies. Godwin, the author of a forgotten book, called Political Justice, and of some romances, which deserve a better fate than oblivion, has taken it lately into his head that he is a poet, and has actually produced a most woful and pitiful tragedy, in which he reveals his utter ignorance even of the common law of Prosody. Horace in London thus facetiously quizzes the audacious Pretender.

BOOK I. ODE XXV.

MY GODWIN.

Parcius junctas quatiunt fenestras.

OUR Temple youth, a lawless train,
Blockading Johnson's window pane,

No longer laud thy solemn strain,
My Godwin.

Chaucer's a mighty tedious elf,
Fleetwood lives only for himself,
And Caleb Williams loves the shelf,
My Godwin.

No longer cry the sprites unblest,
Awake, arise, stand forth confest;
For fallen, fallen, is thy crest

My Godwin.

Thy jaded muse for former feats,

Does penance now in quarto sheets,
Or, clothing parcels, roams the streets,
My Godwin.

Thy flame at Luna's lamp thou light'st,
Blank is the verse that thou indit'st,
Thy play is damn'd, yet still thou writ'st,
My Godwin.

And still to wield the gray goose quill,
When Phoebus sinks, to feel no chill,
"With me is to be lovely still,"

My Godwin.

The winged steed, a bit of blood,

Bore thee, like Trunnion, through the flood,

To leave thee sprawling in the mud,

My Godwin;

But carries now, with martial trot,
In glittering armour, Walter Scott,
A poet he-which thou art not,

My Godwin.

Nay, nay, forbear these jealous wails,

Though he's upborne on Fashion's gales,

Thy heavy bark attendant sails,

My Godwin.

Fate each by different streams conveys,

His skiff in Aganippe plays;

And thine in Lethe's whirlpool strays,

My Godwin.

THE BEEHIVE, No. IV.-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci.

Keep to the right as the law directs.

SUCH is the order of the statute in travelling upon turnpike roads; and it is very satisfactory and convenient that a rule has been established, to which all denominations of travellers must yield obedience. It prevents those altercations and quarrels, which sometimes occurred formerly upon our roads, from the uncertainty in which the question of right was enveloped.

teams.

It is however to be regretted that the rule was not reversed. Keep to the left as the law directs, would have been as convenient to all descriptions of travellers, and for a large and useful class, incomparably more safe. Wagoners, when they travel on foot, as very frequently occurs, walk on the left side of their Of course, in narrow or difficult roads, when they encounter other teams, they are placed between the two, and are actually in danger of being crushed to death. Accidents of this kind will probably happen. And as prevention is in every case better than cure, and as this is one of those cases, which, after the event has taken place, admit of no cure, it deserves the attention of the legislature to pass an act making the alteration suggested.

I am informed, and on the very best authority, that the English rule is-Keep to the left.

A new project to restrain mendicity.

The rev. Mr. Haweis, an English clergyman, published, in the year 1788, a work on the situation of the poor, with some plans for diminishing the number of beggars. Some of them were very extraordinary, and among the rest one had a very curious novelty to recommend it to the public attention. He proposed to pass an act imposing a penalty, not, as the reader would suppose, upon the mendicant, but on those who supplied his wants.* "Charity covereth a multitude of sins."

Ruggles's History of the Poor, vol. ii, p. 36.