FROM THE DUTCH OF TOLLENS.

TO A MOURNER.

THE Creeping worm that, weak and weary,
Was slumbering in its narrow cell,
Enraptur'd, bursts that prison dreary,
And, fluttering, leaves its wither'd shell:
Gently moving-gaily roving

Far away from earthly care;

Soaring brightly-wafted lightly

Through the boundless fields of air.

Thou, Mourner! dry that thoughtless tear,
And gaze no more upon the dead;
'Tis but a solitary bier!

No earthly spirit lingers there;

On wings of light to Heaven 'tis fled!

HORACE, BOOK III. ODE XIX.

WHAT years from Inachus divide
Codrus, who for his country died,
You tell, and acus's line,
And the sad "tale of Troy divine :"
But what the price of Chian; who
Heats for his friend the bagnio;
When I, and at whose genial board,
Shall shut out winter-not a word!

Quick, boy! a bumper to the Moon;
Again-one more to Night's mid noon,
One to Murena. Three or nine,
As measures, best the cup combine.
Nine, rapt transported poets claim,
Who madden with the Muses' flame:
Link'd with her naked sisters she,
The modest Grace permits but three,
Anxious from feuds her train to save-
O'tis delicious thus to rave!

Why does yon pipe it's tones forget?
Why mute the lyre, the flageolet?
Pshaw! what frugality of flowers!
More roses. This wild din of ours,

Old splenetic! let Lycus hear,

And-pair'd, not match'd-his wedded dear.

Thee, beamy with thy clustering hair,

Thee, Telephus, as Hesper fair,

Ripe Chloë courts: for Glycera

I slowly, gently melt away.

W.

J. B.

THE BRITON'S LAMENT FOR ITALY.
Он, Italy thou fair and fated land,

How sigh'd the soul of sympathy for thee,
When Freedom's steel first glitter'd in thy hand,
When first thy children, panting to be free,
The banner rais'd for injur'd Italy!

But all is hush'd-the brief and scanty gleam
But gilds the rising of a darker day;

Like thoughts that haunt the Helot's frantic dream,
Like earth-bred vapour mocks with treach'rous ray-
Then melts like morning mistiness away.

Alas! for Italy-her fertile fields

Laugh in the radiance of the bright blue sky;
Nature her gifts in gay profusion yields-
Why does her bosom's lavish store deny
The heav'n-born plant-celestial Liberty!
The foul disgrace-ah, how can pity hide---
How burns the cheek of honest Shame to tell,
Where Honour's sons had conquer'd or had died,
Lock'd in the chain of Fear's accursed spell,
Without a blow-degenerate Naples fell!

Now weave the shroud--and twine the cypress wreath,
Unbind the tarnish'd laurel from her brow-
Pour forth the wail-note of untimely death-
Scorn'd and polluted by the foreign foe,
A sister-nation in the dust lies low.

Oh, once the parent of the Great and Good,
Thy feeble Age has bred the coward-slave!
Dash from thy outrag'd breast the servile brood
Whose craven heart,--whose base, ungen'rous blood,
Cold as thy marble-impotent to save,
Live, all unworthy of the soldier's grave!
Unhappy land! had Britain's sons been thine,
How had each glowing breast for freedom bled!
And nerv'd in that dear cause with pow'r divine,
Had hurl'd destruction on the tyrant's head,
Or bravely sunk on Glory's purple bed.
Poor are the treasures of triumphant Art,
And vain the boast of deathless deeds of yore;
Poor is the land that lacks the manly heart

To wear his Country in its inmost core,
And spurn th' invader from his native shore.

That land is rich-where filial ties inspire
Heroic love, the dauntless patriot's boast-
Where glows the free-born breast with freedom's fire.
And wakes in ev'ry faithful heart a host
To guard the sacred soil of Britain's coast.

VOL. II. NO. VII.

N.

of

TRICKS OF SPEAKING.

I SHOULD be departing from a very good habit, gentle reader, if I were to give you any inkling beforehand of what I am going to say. There are some people, indeed, of such a quick imagination, they guess how your sentence will end almost as soon as you begin it; and if you are conversing with them, they are sure to pop some of your own words into your mouth before you have yet come to them. I, who have some little hesitation in my utterance, and a good deal of trouble in collecting my ideas at any time, hate all such word-midwives from the bottom my heart. Every one should be allowed to tell his own story after his own manner. For why should one be obliged to call out, like Grumio," Tell thou the tale;" or with honest Fluellin, "It is not well done, mark you now, to take tales out of my mouth ere it is made an end and finished." But waving the incivility of such interruptions, they generally disappoint their own end, and keep the hearers the longer from getting at the marrow of the subject, as they sometimes learn to their cost. Of all hearers, by the way, your poets, with all due respect be it spoken, are the most impatient and troublesome, and this, I suppose, because the rules of their own art never permit them to commence themselves "ab ovo." Indeed the only exception I know is that famous poet" of the north countrie," my worthy good friend, who most obligingly listened to one or two very long stories I told him a little while ago without interrupting me once. He is certainly the perfection of good-nature. To be sure I met with the stories afterwards in the "Tales of my Landlord," with all the circumstances of dress, and character, and scenery, exactly as I had described them. But could any thing be more flattering than such a proof, not only of his patience, but of his courteous attention? Next to the poets, the most abominable personages to talk to are the lawyers. It seems as if they were always in such a hurry to begin their own speechifying, that they could not bear to hear any one else's tongue agoing. It was but the other day I went to consult one of them about prosecuting a rascally servant, who had stolen some of my plate. I had scarcely mentioned the word servant, when off goes my good friend of the long robe at a tangent; and, "by the by," says he, "what you are now telling me reminds me of an odd occurrence at the assizes some years ago. member my friend the Solicitor-General (he was then Mr. Serjeant Copley) was cross-examining a witness"---and so he went on for ten minutes with a long cock-and-bull story, but what it was, or what Mr. Serjeant Copley and the assizes had to do with my plate that was stolen, I could not learn then, nor can I now conceive, for the life of me. But I remember well I was out of

I re

all patience with the foolish interruption. But all this, by-theby. What I was going to remark is, that after observing the ways of others, and studying what grave authors have written on the subject), I find that the best method of opening a matter is either to bounce bravely into the midst of it, or else to begin and go on with some other topic, as wide from the mark as may be, and then introduce, what you really wish to say, obiter, and by way of parenthesis.

For the first method, I know no better expedient than to fall to with a good round exclamation. It excites curiosity, and stirs a few questions in your hearers at first, but after a while they are heartily glad to listen. And in this particular it is surprising how entirely the instincts of mankind accord with the suggestions of art and experience. This very method is often pursued with great success by the vulgar- a fact of which Ben Jonson was well aware, and which he has happily illustrated in the following passage of his Tale of a Tub.

Puppy. Oh, where's my master? my master? my master? Dame Turfe. Thy master? what would'st with thy master, man? There's thy master.

What's the matter, Puppy?

Turfe.
Puppy. Oh, master! oh, dame! oh, dame! oh, master!

Dame Turfe. What say'st thou to thy master, or thy dame?
Puppy. Oh, John Clay! John Clay! John Clay!

Turfe.

What of John Clay?

Clay. Oh, Lord! oh, me! what shall I do? poor John!
Puppy. Oh, John Clay! John Clay! John Clay!
Clay.

Alas!

Puppy.

What of Clay?

He hath lost, he hath lost.

Turfe. For luck sake, speak, Puppy, what hath he lost? Puppy. Oh, Awdry! Awdry! Awdry! Turfe. What of my daughter Awdry? Puppy. I tell you, Awdry-do you understand me? Awdry, sweet master! Awdry, my dear dame! Turfe. Where is she? What's become of her, Puppy. Oh, the serving-man! the serving-man! the serving-man! Turfe. What talk'st thou of the serving-man? Where's Awdry? Puppy. Gone with the serving-man, gone with the serving-man. Dame Turfe. Good Puppy, whither is she gone with him? Puppy. I cannot tell; he bade me bring you word,

The Captain lay at the Lion, &c.

I pray thee?

Every day, indeed, I find persons, whom I do my best to imitate, luckily setting out full sail, and with a strong current, into the midst of their narrative, in some such fashion us this: "It

was the oddest thing, as I was observing to my friend Sir Benjamin yesterday, that whilst all this occurred I never chanced to turn round; for, you must know, it was twelve o'clock, and I had been talking to him more than an hour with my hand twirled round his button. I did not turn round, as I mentioned, or else I think I should have discovered the droll trick I am just mentioning to you." And after this prelude on goes the story fluently enough, for the great art is to get once clearly afloat, and then, to be sure, when a man has sense, out it will needs come, and he finds himself giving information by wholesale, without well knowing by what cue he fell into such a communicative humour.

But to proceed in this downright manner is not always practicable; nor, if it were, would it be always desirable. Bacon wisely recommends a little preliminary excursion. "To use no

circumstance at all," says he, "before one comes to the matter, is blunt." And here, though persons in common life sometimes succeed tolerably well, yet they would advance much more if they would carefully study the modern orators. Sometimes the most trivial circumstance occurring at the moment may serve for a good introduction. Of such preludes one of the happiest instances occurs in the admirable speech of Mr. Curran for Justice Johnstone. There happened to be some degree of silence, a thing very unusual indeed in an Irish court of justice, when Mr. Curran rose to speak. That mighty genius caught the opportunity, and burst forth thus: "I am glad it is so; I am glad of this factitious dumbness; for if murmurs dared to become audible, my voice would be too feeble to drown them; but when all is hushed, when nature sleeps-cum quies mortalibus agris---the weakest voice is heard. The shepherd's whistle shoots across the listening darkness of the interminable heath, and gives notice that the wolf is upon his walk, and the same gloom and stillness that tempt the monster to come abroad facilitate the communication of the warning to beware. Yes, through that silence the shepherd shall be put upon his guard; yes, through that silence shall the felon savage be chased into the toil. Yes, my lords, I feel myself cheered and impressed by the composed and dignified attention with which I see you are disposed to hear me."

I am told that some of the imitators of this great orator have been still more successful than their prototype in catching a hint from the occasion. But I must confess it is my misfortune not to have familiarized myself sufficiently with their productions, to be able to vouch for this assertion myself, though I have not the slightest doubt it is strictly true, and that the passage I have extracted may have been completely eclipsed