Their humorous disasters form a small part of the poem, which contains the fabulous history of the foundation of Waltham Cross, and a long discussion between our old friend Puck and some of his brother elves, in both of which episodical descriptions, Mr. Strutt appears to have had great pleasure in dwelling on antiquarian subjects. We cannot forbear copying the following enumeration of inauspicious' omens, that our readers may have the satisfaction of knowing, from the best authority, by what symptoms the wisdom of our ancestors teaches them to anticipate a day of certain misery:

'Slept nature then, when danger had prepared
His net, and both our worthies were ensnared ?
No; nature slept not; warning prodigies
And frequent tokens, like so many spies,
Declar'd approaching harm.-Thrice in the night
Clodpoll awak'd, and shiver'd with affright:
Of crawling snakes he dream'd, that o'er his bed
Assembl'd, and a ghost without a head.

Three drops of blood, when Ploughshare first arose,
At equal intervals, fell from his nose:

Thrice mew'd the cat; a raven, kept hard by,
Croak'd thrice aloud; and thrice did crickets cry,
A magpie chatter'd, in his cage confin'd;

A teeming bitch beheld them thrice, and whin'd.
The morning dram, by antient usage due
To belly, Clodpoll claim'd, for ever true

To belly's call:-Soon as the glass was fill'd,
By chance 'twas broken, and the liquor spill'd!

Thrice three times Ploughshare sneez'd, and stumbl'd o'er
The rising threshold of the tap-room door.-
'Bad luck to both,' a passing fish-drab cried,
As they came forth. Her comrade thus replied;
"Why stay they not at home?'-

P. 38 of Bumpkin's Disaster.

Mr. Strutt generally displays great facility of expression, which is seldom elevated into poetry, but sometimes ap proaches it. The following simile is not deficient either in elegance or feeling:

'So the poor bird, ensnar'd by human art,
Moans in its cage, and views with panting heart
The distant woods: beset around with fears,
It pines with grief, and from its food forbears:
But if perchance restor❜d by milder fate
To native freedom, and its wonted mate,

Proud of its liberty, it cleaves the skies
With eager joy, and carols as it flies.'

P. 31 of Bumpkin's Disaster:

We learn with pleasure that the public will soon be presented with an account of the life and writings of the late Mr. Joseph Strutt, wherein his several published and unpublished writings will be particularly noticed; with an analytical and critical statement of the whole.' Such a work is very likely to throw great light on the most interesting parts of archæology.

ART. IX.-Poggio Bracciolini Florentini Dialogus, an seni sit uxor ducenda, circa, an. 1435. conscriptus, nunc primum typis mandatus et publici juris factus, edente Gulielmo Shepherd, Liverpoole, Typis Geo. F. Harris. 1807 4to.-Ought an old Man to Marry? A Dialogue, written about the year 1485, by Poggio Bracciolini a Florentine; now published, for the first time, by William Shepherd. Cadell and Davis, London.

JOHN Francis Poggio Bracciolini, was born 1380, at Terra Nova, in the Florentine state. He was secretary to seven popes during a period of forty years. He was appointed secretary to the republic of Florence in 1455; and died in 1459 in a good old age. Poggio acted an important part in the council of Constance; and we are indebted to his industry and erudition for the preservation of many classical remains.

When Mr. Shepherd was at Paris, in the year 1802, he discovered the following dialogues of Poggio, among the MSS in the national library; he made an accurate copy of the original; of which he printed a very few copies not long after his return. One of these was presented to Dr. Parr, and it is owing to the favourable opinion, which that great scholar entertained of the work, that it is now presented to the public. When at the advanced age of fifty-five, Poggio judged it expedient to take unto himself a wife. The following dialogue is said to have taken place soon after that event, between the author and two of his learned friends, Nicolaus Nicolus and Charles Aretine. Nicolaus argued stoutly against entering into any matrimonial engagement on the confines of old age. He thought that such persons had need of no small portion of hellebore, in order to dispel the

fumes of insanity from the brain. Whatan instance of folly said he, was it in you, Poggio, who have hitherto been your own master and laughed at matrimony, to take a wife in your old age, to forego your independence for the shackles of slavery, and to bring on yourself a load of vexations, which you can neither endure without pain, nor get rid of if you would! This affair of matrimony may do very well for a young man, but it is quite incongruous in an old. Let those, who will, commend the marriage state, but for my part, I think that it is a source of no trifling uneasinesses at.. all times of life; but quite a torment in our declining years; which need the alleviations of bliss, rather than the weight of conjugal wo. Old age, instead of being competent to the duties of matrimony, has more need of repose than toil; it has of itself a sufficiency of care, without any supernume rary ills. But perhaps, says Poggio, you judge of others by yourself; you have always abominated the very name of wife, as an irremediable calamity, without once tasting the pleasures of matrimony, which, if sweet to any, must to the old be doubly sweet. To this day, I have never experienced one sensation of satiety or regret; but my portion of con jugal bliss seems to be such a continually accumulating stock, that I reckon those who live single among the greatest of fools. Nicolaus thought, that Poggio had been more fortunate than wise in the choice which he had made; and that he could hardly be reckoned in his right senses, who, in his five and fiftieth year, which Poggio had then attained, went seeking after a wife, and aggravated the oppressive incumbency of age, by a more intolerable weight of care. What, if your wife were such a compound of perverseness and opposition, as to greet you with a scoul upon her countenance when you returned from abroad, scolded you when you went out, and stunned you with her clack when you staid at home? What distress, what corrosive anxiety and wo? What, if she should take to drinking, which is no improbable surmise? If she should prove wanton, sluttish and somnolent? You had better be dead than pass your life with such a creature as this. If an old man marry, he must take a virgin or a widow, a young woman or an old. If he make choice of a young, the discordancy of her manners will prevent any thing like the assimilation of amity in the society of life. Where the affections do not coalesce, dissentious will arise, and hatred will ensue. If a widow be the object of his choice, she will, if young, after having experienced a young husband, not patiently brook the transition to an eld. Her former mate will often excite her longing sighs;

and, though timidity may smother the confession, it will plainly appear that the disgust of the present is increased by regret of the past. But if he should marry an old dame, whose years harmonize with his own,. he will have no children; and their mutual infirmities will accelerate their mutual decay. The debility of one will be increased by that of the other; and thus each will experience a double quantity of disease and wo. Besides, a hundred vexations are springing up every day, which are enough to make not only an old man, but even a young regret the nuptial tie. If to these should be added the jealous apprehension, or the actual consciousness of infidelity, it is impossible to imagine a situation more deplorable, or misery more acute. Such was the representation of real or imagined ills, with which the mind of Nicolaus depicted the matrimonial state, which he said, had induced him not to venture on so hazardous an experiment. With respect to those who, vergenti ætate uxorem quærant, take it into their heads to marry when life is just burnt to the wick, he exclaimed O insulsos homines; qui fessi ac requiem petentes in lectum se projiciunt, quiescendi causâ, vepribus ac rubis repletum.' O foolish men! who, oppressed with languor, and sighing for repose, throw themselves, for the sake of rest, on a bed which is covered with brambles and thorns.' But Nicolaus seemed to think that marriage was the most grievous mistake in those old. persons who had a taste for literature, and a capacity to advance the cause of science and of truth. He allowed, indeed, that this might not always be the case; that the matrimonial choice of Poggio might be one of singular felicity; but he concluded with adding, that the safest counsels azere the best. Let not our female readers suppose that the force of the argument is likely to turn against the felicity of their charms or that even an old man is to be logically interdicted the solace of having one of them to wife. Their cause is not in bad hands, for Charles Aretine, who is one of the speakers in the dialogue,passes such high commendations even on senile marriages, as may well set every greyheaded batchelor in the kingdom a longing after such a treasure of sweets. We shall retail some of the matrimonial persua sives on which Charles so fervently expatiates. In the first place he did not like that kind of life, which, if it were universally practised, would, in the course of a century, bardly leave an inhabitant on the face of the earth. ile thought it was more virtuous to live in society and to contribute to the stock of its enjoyments, than to molder in the sterility of solitude, and never to ex

perience that perfect union of hearts and interchange of endearments which marriage alone affords. We shall not translate the following sentences; but recommend them for insertion in the common-place book of Mr. Malthus. Turpe quidem est, ac præter naturâ nobis insitam rationem, cum homo animal sit sociabile ad procreationem natum, respuere giguendi facultatem et eam societatem spernere quæ sit omnium optima ac jucundissima. Cætera animalia ratione carentia, vis ipsa impellit naturæ ad conjunctionem procreandi gratia,ut sua species cuique conservetur. Quid homo ratione utens, cujus fæcunditas utilior est brutis, an erit cæteris deterior, et facultate cælitùs propagandæ sobolis datâ, ad delendum genus hominum abutetur? Charles did not think that even the leisure of literature must necessarily be absorbed in the occupations of matrimony. He recited the names of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus; of Cato, Tully, Varro, Seneca and other renowned sages, in whom marriage did not operate as a preventive to the attainment of pre-eminence in every department of learning aud of virtue. He who abstains from inatzimony will, perhaps, be led to commit adultery, fornication, or some more detestable crime. Continence is a virtue which is practised only by a few; and therefore the conjugal tie ought to be sought as the safeguard of innocence. For these reasons, independent of other considerations, Charles was an advocate for early marriages as well as late; and he thought that to be marriageable was a sufficient inducement to marry. Oh Charles! Charles! Had you or Poggio lived to converse with Mr. Malthus, he would have taught you bet ter things! He would have let you know how much public good might be expected from practising celibacy,till you were on the confines of fourscore. Then, if you have saved a sufficient provision for a family, why e'en take a wife, and perpetuate the noble race of man..

With respect to the objection which Nicolaus had urged against matrimony as a species of servitude, Charles declared that he considered it rather as highly favourable to liberty; as the married man was rather a master than a slave. He is free from those vices by which the unmarried are ensnared ; and his wife finds the sweetest satisfaction in complying with his will. But he thought matrimony to be more particularly suited to the old; who, when the fever of youth was past, were more likely to make a judicious choice; and to gather the most delicious fruits of matrimonial life. This appeared to excite the risibility of Nicolaus; but Charles was not to be laughed out of his argument; and he proceeded to de