nation of a father, the loud and dolorous lamentations of a fond mother, at the flight of their only child. The whole village were sharers in our sorrow; for Dick had endeared himself to his fellows by a frank, generous, friendly disposition; and every girl in the parish bemoaned his loss; for, besides his natural gallantry, he was tall, stout, handsome, of a happy physiognomy, and possessing brilliant black eyes. Nancy was unconsolable for him-Nancy, the lovely brunette, who was wont to be the joy of his heart, the object of his fondest hopes! her loud and frantic grief, which prudence laboured in vain to restrain, terminated at length in silent but consumptive despondency.

Various were the conjectures formed as to the route he had taken, and the way of life he had embraced. Sometimes we imagined that he had enlisted in a troop of strolling players; at others, we supposed he had emigrated to Heliconia, Pindus, or Parnassus, those foreign countries whose outlandish praises were perpetually in his mouth.

A letter from him, at London, six months after his departure, relieved us from this uncertainty. He was sensibly affected,' he said, by the stab which his abrupt departure must have given to the parental bosom; but that he could resist no longer the powerful vocation of Phoebus, the Deity to whom, in future, the labours of his life should be devoted. Tell my lovely Nancy,' he proceeds, 'that from her presence nothing could have divorced me except the more attractive allurements of the Sisters Nine, in whose good graces at length all my wishes are absorbed.'

Imagine, Sir, the horror, the anguish of my soul, when I learned from his own mouth, as it were, that my son had forsaken the faith of his forefathers, turned Saracen, and lived in a state of incest with Nine Sisters!

This sad piece of intelligence threw his poor mother into a violent brain fever, from which she did not recover for nine months. As soon as the state of her health and the arrangement of my affairs permitted me to leave her, I posted up to London, in order, if possible, to reclaim this abandoned boy, or rather to cure him of a fatal distemper that had unhinged his understanding, and caused his afflicted parents to press with hurried steps towards the grave.

Should this part of my son's history prove in any degree agreeable to your readers, I shall, on a future occasion, send you an account of his adventures in London, and the distresses he suffered while in the service of the Patrons of the Muses; by whom, afterwards found, he meant the London Booksellers. Your's !!

TOM HOMELY.

POETRY.

10 THE TWILIGHT HOUR.

WHEN Day's last tints forsake the rosy west,
And Twilight weaves her filmy mantle grey;
When the lone red-breast from the bending spray
Warbles his ev'ning song, and sinks to rest;
When the mild planet of the night a ray

Of silv'ry lustre o'er the landscape throws;
And Nature sleeps, in undisturb'd repose,
Along the shadowy scenes I love to stray.
Then to the pensive soul how dear the charms

Of hills, and vales, of groves, and winding streams,
While rest, on distant dales, the moon's pale beams!
The tranquil scene my grateful bosom warms;
With sweetest solace lulls each anxious care,
And soothes the thrilling anguish of despair!

ALBERT.

INGRATITUDE.

RUSH forth, ye gales, descend, thou drifting snow,
Yet than ungrateful man thou'rt still more kind;
Less keen the viewless couriers of the wind,
Who give, with rudest breath, the blast to blow.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, thy chilling reign.
Resume, dread Winter, with remorseless sway;
Thy frosts, thy horrors all, less biting they
Than is of benefits forgot the pain.

Thy icy sceptre o'er the wat'ry world

Stretch, and its waves arrest from pole to pole; Let storm on storm thro' frighten'd æther roll, And round Heav'n's arch its thunderbolts be hurl'd: Th' ungrateful friend more dreadful still to prove, Who drinks, in Sorrow's hour, oblivion to thy love!

ELEGIAC SONG.

LOUD howls the wind, hard beats the rain,
Blue glaring light'nings rend the tree;
And wildly bounds yon wat'ry plain,

That bears my love, far, far from me!
Around the dreadful thunders roll,
And screaming horror chills my soul !
Where, where, amid the tempest drear,
Is he my heart shall ever love?
Ah! dost thou now, each danger near,
Ten thousand dire reflections prove?
Or driv'n along yon stormy sea,

Ah! dost thou think on love and me?

Perhaps to thee the lightning flies,

And aweful thunders roll in vain!

Ev'n now, perhaps, my lover lies

Low sunk beneath yon raging main !
Ah! cease, ye winds, your angry roar,
Ye billows bear him safely o'er!

She said, and o'er the wat'ry way
A billow bore-his corse along!

All cold and pale, expos'd he lay,

She saw, and ceas'd her plaintive song:
Then plung'd amid the foaining wave,
And sought her hapless lover's grave!'

ALBERT.

A NEW APPLICATION

OF

A FASHIONABLE PHRASE.

NOT speaking French, NAT ask'd, with English grace,
What's en bon point?'-I answer'd, In good case.'
A week or two, or more, had sped their flight,
When NAT's virago bade the world good night:

I call'd, unknowing, my respects to pay;

NAT cried, My wife's nail'd fast !---she's en bon point to-day!'

QUIZICUS MUM.

PROLOGUE TO PIZARRO.

WRITTEN BY RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, ESQ.

CHILL'D by rude gales, while yet reluctant May
With-holds the beauties of the vernal day;

As some fond maid, whom matron frowns reprove,
Suspends the smile her heart devotes to love;
The season's pleasures too delay their hour,
And Winter revels with protracted pow'r :
Then blame not, Critics, if, thus late, we bring
A Winter's Drama-but reproach-the Spring.
What prudent Cit dares yet the season trust,
Bask in his whisky, and enjoy the dust?
Hors'd in Cheapside, scarce yet the gayer spark
Atchieves the Sunday triumph of the Park;
Scarce yet you see him, dreading to be late,

Scour the New Road, and dash thro' Grosvenor-gate:-
Anxious-yet timorous too!-his steed to shew,
The hack Bucephalus of Rotten-row!
Careless he seems, yet, vigilantly sly,
Wooes the stray glance of Ladies passing by..
While his off-heel, insidiously aside,
Provokes the caper which he seems to chide.
Scarce rural Kensington due honour gains,
The vulgar verdure of her walk remains!
Where white rob'd Misses amble two by two,
Nodding to booted beaux-how' do, how' do?'
With gen'rous questions that no answer wait,

How vastly full! A'n't you come vastly late?
'I'n't it quite charming? When do you leave town?
'A'n't you quite tir'd? Pray can we set you down?'
These suburb pleasures of a London May,

Imperfect yet, we hail the cold delay;

Should our play please-and you're indulgent ever-
Kindly decree-' 'tis better late than never.'

THE CALM.

THE winds are hush'd-once more the skies serene,
The lightning spent-the roaring thunders cease;
Returning sun-beams gild the past'ral scene-
And all around is Happiness and Peace.

The rain-drop quivers on the verdant spray,
The shrubs again their lovely bloom renew,
The vocal choirs resume their broken lay-

And NATURE smiles thro' pearly gems of dew!
Who can the pleasures of the village tell,

When from their huts the rural tribes advance?Who, while no Curfew sounds the evening knell, With nimble footstep trace the mazy danceWhile songs of humour, innocence, and glee Bespeak and bless the SONS OF LIBERTY!

SONG TO DELIA.

IN vain I leave the lonely shade,
And o'er the smiling vallies rove;
In vain the song that cheers the glade
Would soothe my sigh of hopeless love!
A pensive wand'rer o'er the lawn,

With silent steps, I sadly stray!
My tears, that meet the blush of dawn,
Salute the gloom of parting day!
Ah! Delia, charm my ravish'd sight!
Ah! haste to bless these eyes again!
Restore my days of past delight,

And ease a breast o'er-whelm'd with pain?
Yet should'st thou, cruel, here forlorn,
Condemn thy haplesss swain to pine;
Ev'n then, tho' from thy beauties torn,
My soul would ever dwell with thine!

THE ANGRY POET.

THIS pen shall trim you.'Well, agreed:
But when you've quritten, who will read?

W. B.