Another old engraved specimen contained this

verse:

"Content thy selfe withe thyne estat,

And sende no poore wight from thy gate;
For why, this councell I thee give,

To learne to dye, and dye to lyve."

The following lines by Pope, occurring in his Epistle to the Earl of Oxford, have been used in

"It matters little at what hour o❜ the day

The righteous fall asleep; death cannot come

To him untimely who is fit to die.

The less of this cold world, the more of heaven;
The briefer life, the earlier immortality."

Various other examples of watch-case verses follow:

THE WATCH'S MOMENTS.

"See how the moments pass,

How swift they fly away!

In the instructive glass
Behold thy life's decay.
Oh! waste not then thy prime
In sin's pernicious road;
Redeem thy misspent time,
Acquaint thyself with God.
So when thy pulse shall cease
Its throbbing transient play,
The soul to realms of bliss

May wing its joyful way."

66 Deign, lady fair, this watch to wear,
To mark how moments fly;

For none a moment have to spare,
Who in a moment die."

TO A LADY WITH THE PRESENT OF A WATCH.
"With me while present, may thy lovely eyes,
Be never turned upon this golden toy ;
Think every pleasing hour too swiftly flies,
And measure time by joy succeeding joy.
But when the cares that interrupt our bliss,
To me not always will thy sight allow,
Then oft with fond impatience look on this,
Then every minute count—
-as I do now."

"Time is thou hast, employ the portion small
Time past is gone, thou canst not it recall
11;
Time future is not, and may never be ;
Time present is the only time for thee."

"Watch against evil thoughts
Watch against idle words;

;

Watch against sinful ways;

Watch against wicked actions.

What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch."

The following lines have a sand-glass engraved between the first four and the last four lines:

"Mark the rapid motion

Of this timepiece; hear it say,
Man, attend to thy salvation;
Time does quickly pass away.
Why, heedless of the warning

Which my tinkling sound doth give,
Do forget, vain frame adorning,

Man thou art not born to live?"

On a sun-dial the following verse has been found engraved :

"Once at a potent leader's voice it stayed;

Once it went back when a good monarch prayed;
Mortals! howe'er ye grieve, howe'er deplore,

The flying shadow shall return no more."

This was found under an hour-glass in a grotto

near water:

"This babbling stream not uninstructive flows,

Nor idly loiters to its destined main ;

Each flower it feeds that on its margin grows,
Now bids thee blush, whose days are spent in vain.

Nor void of moral, though unheeded glides
Time's current, stealing on with silent haste;
For lo! each failing sand his folly chides,

Who lets one precious moment run to waste."

PROSE POEMS.

EVERAL pages of this kind appeared at the end of an early volume of "Cornhill Magazine," of which this is the beginning :

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

""Tis in the middle of the night; and as with weary hand we write, 'Here endeth C. M. volume seven,' we turn our grateful eyes to heaven. The fainting

soul, oppressed long, expands and blossoms into song; but why 'twere difficult to state, for here commenceth volume eight.

"And ah! what mischiefs him environ who claps the editorial tiar on! 'Tis but a paper thing, no doubt; but those who don it soon find out the weight of lead— ah me, how weary !—one little foolscap sheet may carry. Pleasing, we hear, to gods and man was Mr. William Gladstone when he calmed the paper duty fuss; but oh, 'twas very hard on Us. Before he took the impost off, one gentleman was found enough (he was Herculean, but still!) to bear the letters from Cornhill: two men are needed now, and these are clearly going at the knees. Yet happy hearts had we to-day if one in fifteen hundred, say, of all the packets, white and blue, which we diurnally go through, yielded an ounce of sterling brains, or ought but headache for our pains. Ah, could the Correspondent see the Editor in his misery, no more injurious ink he'd shed, but tears of sympathy instead.

What is this tale of straws and bricks? A hen with fifty thousand chicks clapt in Sahara's sandy plain to peck the wilderness for grain-in that unhappy fowl is seen the despot of a magazine. Only one difference we find; but that is most important, mind. Instinct compels her patient beak; ours-in all modesty we speak is kept by CONSCIENCE (sternly chaste) pegging the literary waste. Our barns are stored, our garners -well, the stock in them's considerable; yet when we're to the desert brought, again comes back the welcome thought that somewhere in its depths may hide one little seed, which, multiplied in our half-acre on Cornhill, might all the land with gladness fill. Experience then no more we heed; but, though we seldom find the seed, we read, and read, and read, and read." &c. &c.

This is also an instance of this hidden verse in the beginning of one of Macaulay's letters to his sister Hannah :

"MY DARLING,—Why am I such a fool as to write to a gipsy at Liverpool, who fancies that none is so good as she if she sends one letter for my three? A lazy chit, whose fingers tire in penning a page in reply to a quire! There, miss, you read all the first sentence of my epistle, and never knew that you were reading verse."

When Mr. Coventry Patmore's "Angel in the House" was first published, the "Athenæum " furnished the following unique criticism:

"The gentle reader we apprise, That this new Angel