how she was used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept; but she said 'those innocents would do her no harm; and how frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because I was never half so good or religious as she-and yet I never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows, and tried to look courageous. Then I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, having us to the great house in the holidays, where I, in particular, used to spend many hours by myself in gazing upon the old busts of the twelve Cæsars that had been emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them; how I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken panels, with the gilding almost rubbed out-sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening man would cross me-and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then, and because I had more pleasure in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yewtrees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries and the fir apples, which were good for nothing but to look at; or in lying about upon the fresh grass, with all the fine garden smells around me; or basking in the orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening, too, along with the oranges and the limes, in that grateful warmth; or in watching the dace that darted to and fro in the fishpond at the bottom of the garden, with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings. I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such-like common baits of children. Here John slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes, which, not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the present as irrelevant. Then, in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, though their greatgrandmother Field loved all her grandchildren, yet in an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any out; and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too much spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries; and how their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to the admiration of everybody, but of their great-grandmother Field most especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when I was a lame-footed boy-for he was a good bit older than me-many a mile when I could not walk for pain; and how, in after-life, he became lamefooted too, and I did not always, I fear, make allowances enough for him when he was impatient and in pain, nor remember sufficiently how considerate he had been to me when I was lame-footed; and how, when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he had died a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life and death; and how I bore his death, as I thought, pretty well at first, but afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not cry or take it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much I had loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, and wished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling with him-for we

quarrelled sometimes-rather than not have him again; and was as uneasy without him, as he, their poor uncle, must have been when the doctor took off his limb. Here the children fell a-crying, and asked if their little mourning which they had on was not for Uncle John; and they looked up and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell them some stories about their pretty dead mother. Then I told how, for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W-n; and, as much as children could understand, I explained to them what coyness, and difficulty, and denial meant in maidens; when suddenly turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding, till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech: 'We are not of Alice, nor of thee; nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing, less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence and a name;' and immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side—but John L. (or James Elia) was gone for ever.

Poor Relations.

A poor relation is the most irrelevant thing in nature, a piece of impertinent correspondency, an odious approximation, a haunting conscience, a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of your prosperity, an unwelcome remembrancer, a perpetually recurring mortification, a drain on your purse, a more intolerable dun upon your pride, a drawback upon success, a rebuke to your rising, a stain in your blood, a blot on your scutcheon, a rent in your garment, a death's-head at your banquet, Agathocles' pot, a Mordecai in your gate, a Lazarus at your door, a lion in your path, a frog in your chamber, a fly in your ointment, a mote in your eye, a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends, the one thing not needful, the hail in harvest, the ounce of sour in a pound of sweet. He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you, 'That is Mr A rap between familiarity and respect, that demands, and at the same time seems to despair of entertainment. He entereth smiling and embarrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, and draweth it back again. He casually looketh in about dinner-time, when the table is full. He offereth to go away, seeing you have company, but is induced to stay. He filleth a chair, and your visitor's two children are accommodated at a side-table. He never cometh upon open days, when your wife says with some complacency: My dear, perhaps Mr- will drop in to-day.' He remembereth birthdays, and professeth he is fortunate to have stumbled upon one. He declareth against fish, the turbot being small, yet suffereth himself to be importuned into a slice against his first resolution. He sticketh by the port, yet will be prevailed upon to empty the remainder glass of claret, if a stranger press it upon him. He is a puzzle to the servants, who are fearful of being too obsequious, or not civil enough to him. The guests think they have seen him before.' Every one speculateth upon his condition; and the most part take him to be a tide-waiter. He calleth you by your Christian name, to imply that his other is the same with your own. He is too familiar by half, yet you wish he had less diffidence. With half the familiarity, he might pass for a casual dependent; with more boldness, he would be in no danger of being taken

for what he is. He is too humble for a friend, yet taketh on him more state than befits a client. He is a worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he bringeth up no rent; yet 'tis odds, from his garb and demeanour, that your guests take him for one. He is asked to make one at the whist-table; refuseth on the score of poverty, and resents being left out. When the company break up, he proffereth to go for a coach, and lets the servant go. He recollects your grandfather; and will thrust in some mean and quite unimportant anecdote of the family. He knew it when it was not quite so flourishing as 'he is blest in seeing it now.' He reviveth past situations, to institute what he calleth favourable comparisons. With a reflecting sort of congratulation he will inquire the price of your furniture; and insult you with a special commendation of your windowcurtains. He is of opinion that the urn is the more elegant shape; but, after all, there was something more comfortable about the old tea-kettle, which you must remember. He dare say you must find a great convenience in having a carriage of your own, and appealeth to your lady if it is not so. Inquireth if you have had your arms done on vellum yet; and did not know till lately that such and such had been the crest of the family. His memory is unseasonable, his compliments perverse, his talk a trouble, his stay pertinacious; and when he goeth away, you dismiss his chair into a corner as precipitately as possible, and feel fairly rid of two

nuisances.

There is a worse evil under the sun, and that is a female poor relation. You may do something with the other; you may pass him off tolerably well; but your indigent she-relative is hopeless. 'He is an old humorist,' you may say, 'and affects to go threadbare. His circumstances are better than folks would take them to be. You are fond of having a character at your table, and truly he is one.' But in the indications of female poverty there can be no disguise. No woman dresses below herself from caprice. The truth must out without shuffling. She is plainly related to the L——s, or what does she at their house?' She is, in all probability, your wife's cousin. Nine times out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is something between a gentlewoman and a beggar, yet the former evidently predominates. She is most provokingly humble, and ostentatiously sensible to her inferiority. He may require to be repressed sometimes-aliquando sufflaminandus erat-but there is no raising her. You send her soup at dinner, and she begs to be helped after the gentlemen. Mr- ― requests the honour of taking wine with her; she hesitates between port and Madeira, and chooses the former because he does. She calls the servant sir; and insists on not troubling him to hold her plate. The housekeeper patronises her. The - children's governess takes upon her to correct her when she has mistaken the piano for a harpsichord.

The Origin of Roast Pig.

Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks' Holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother) was accidentally discovered in the manner following. The swineherd Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every

part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian makeshift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East, from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odour assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from?-not from the burnt cottage-he had smelt that smell beforeindeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young fire-brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moist. ening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burned his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life, indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted-crackling! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding that it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and surrendering himself up to the new-born pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hail-stones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure which he experienced in his lower regions had rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his situation, something like the following dialogue ensued.

"You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is it not enough that you have burned me down three houses with your dog's tricks, and be hanged to you! but you must be eating fire, and I know not what-what have you got there, I say?'

'O father, the pig, the pig! do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats.'

The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt pig.

Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, 'Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste-O Lord!'--with such-like barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke.

Ho-ti trembled every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavour, which, make what sour mouths he would for pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had despatched all that remained of the litter.

Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape,

than ever.

for the neighbours would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable wretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat which God had sent them. Nevertheless strange stories got about. It was observed that Ho-ti's cottage was burned down now more frequently than ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out in broad day, others in the night-time. As often as the sow farrowed, so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a blaze; and Ho-ti himself, which was the more remarkable, instead of chastising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent to him At length they were watched, the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take their trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize town. Evidence was given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdict about to be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that some of the burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be handed into the box. He handled it, and they all handled it; and burning their fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all present-without leaving the box, or any manner of consultation whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty.

The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity of the decision; and when the court was dismissed, went privily, and bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few days his lordship's town-house was observed to be on fire. The thing took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fire in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district. The insurance-offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery, that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked (burned, as they call it) without the necessity of consuming a whole house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a gridiron. Roasting by the string or spit came in a century or two later, I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the manuscript, do the most useful and seemingly the most obvious arts, make their way among mankind.

Without placing too implicit faith in the account above given, it must be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experiment as setting houses on fire (especially in these days) could be assigned in favour of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be found in ROAST PIG.

Of all the delicacies in the whole mundus edibilis, I will maintain it to be the most delicate-princeps obsoni

orum.

WILLIAM SOTHEBY.

his reputation, and procured him the thanks and friendship of the German poet. He now became a frequent competitor for poetical fame. In 1799, he wrote a poem commemorative of the battle of the Nile; in 1800, appeared his translation of the Georgics of Virgil; in 1801, he produced a Poetical Epistle on the Encouragement of the British School of Painting; and in 1802, a tragedy on the model of the ancient Greek drama, entitled Orestes. He next devoted himself to the composition of an original sacred poem, in blank verse, under the title of Saul, which appeared in 1807. The fame of Scott induced him to attempt the romantic metrical style of narrative and description; and in 1810, he published Constance de Castille, a poem in ten cantos. In 1814, he republished his Orestes, together with four other tragedies; and in 1815, a second corrected edition of the Georgics. This translation is one of the best of a classic poet in our language. A tour on the continent gave occasion to another poetical work, Italy. He next began a labour which he had long contemplated, the translation of the Iliad and Odyssey, though he was upwards of seventy years of age before he entered upon the Herculean task. The summer and autumn of 1829 were spent in a tour to Scotland; and the following verses, written in a steam-boat during an excursion to Staffa and Iona, shew the undiminished of the veteran poet: powers

Staffa, I scaled thy summit hoar,

I passed beneath thy arch gigantic,
Whose pillared cavern swells the roar,
When thunders on thy rocky shore

The roll of the Atlantic.

That hour the wind forgot to rave,

The surge forgot its motion,
And every pillar in thy cave
Slept in its shadow on the wave,
Unrippled by the ocean.

Then the past age before me came,

When 'mid the lightning's sweep,
Thy isle with its basaltic frame,
And every column wreathed with flame,
Burst from the boiling deep.

When 'mid Iona's wrecks meanwhile
O'er sculptured graves I trod,
Where Time had strewn each mouldering aisle
O'er saints and kings that reared the pile,

I hailed the eternal God:

Yet, Staffa, more I felt His presence in thy cave Than where Iona's cross rose o'er the western wave.

Approach of Saul and his Guards against the Philistines.
Hark! hark! the clash and clang

Of shaken cymbals cadencing the pace
Of martial movement regular; the swell
Sonorous of the brazen trump of war;

Shrill twang of harps, soothed by melodious chime
Of beat on silver bars; and sweet, in pause
Of harsher instrument, continuous flow

Of breath, through flutes, in symphony with song,
Choirs, whose matched voices filled the air afar
With jubilee and chant of triumph hymn;
And ever and anon irregular burst

Of loudest acclamation to each host

Saul's stately advance proclaimed. Before him, youths
In robes succinct for swiftness; oft they struck
Their staves against the ground, and warned the throng
Backward to distant homage. Next, his strength
Of chariots rolled with each an armed band;
Earth groaned afar beneath their iron wheels :
Part armed with scythe for battle, part adorned
For triumph. Nor there wanting a led train
Of steeds in rich caparison, for show
Of solemn entry. Round about the king,
Warriors, his watch and ward, from every tribe
Drawn out. Of these a thousand each selects,
Of size and comeliness above their peers,

Pride of their race. Radiant their armour: some
In silver cased, scale over scale, that played
All pliant to the litheness of the limb;
Some mailed in twisted gold, link within link
Flexibly ringed and fitted, that the eye
Beneath the yielding panoply pursued,
When act of war the strength of man provoked,
The motion of the muscles, as they worked
In rise and fall. On each left thigh a sword
Swung in the 'broidered baldric; each right hand
Grasped a long-shadowing spear. Like them, their
chiefs

Arrayed; save on their shields of solid ore,

And on their helm, the graver's toil had wrought
Its subtlety in rich device of war;

And o'er their mail, a robe, Punicean dye,
Gracefully played; where the winged shuttle, shot
By cunning of Sidonian virgins, wove
Broidure of many-coloured figures rare.

Bright glowed the sun, and bright the burnished mail
Of thousands, ranged, whose pace to song kept time;
And bright the glare of spears, and gleam of crests,
And flaunt of banners flashing to and fro
The noonday beam. Beneath their coming, earth
Wide glittered. Seen afar, amidst the pomp,
Gorgeously mailed, but more by pride of port
Known, and superior stature, than rich trim
Of war and regal ornament, the king,
Throned in triumphal car, with trophies graced,
Stood eminent. The lifting of his lance
Shone like a sunbeam. O'er his armour flowed
A robe, imperial mantle, thickly starred
With blaze of orient gems; the clasp that bound
Its gathered folds his ample chest athwart,
Sapphire; and o'er his casque where rubies burned,
A cherub flamed and waved his wings in gold.

EDWARD, LORD THURLOW.

EDWARD HOVELL THURLOW, Lord Thurlow (1781-1829), published several small volumes of poetry: Select Poems (1821); Poems on Several Occasions; Angelica, or the Fate of Proteus; Arcita and Palamon, after Chaucer; &c. Amidst much affectation and bad taste, there is real poetry in the works of this nobleman. He was a source of ridicule and sarcasm to wits and reviewersincluding Moore and Byron-and not undeserv

edly; yet in pieces like the following, there is a freshness of fancy and feeling, and a richness of expression, that resembles Herrick or Moore:

Song to May.

May! queen of blossoms,
And fulfilling flowers,
With what pretty music

Shall we charm the hours?
Wilt thou have pipe and reed,
Blown in the open mead?
Or to the lute give heed
In the green bowers?
Thou hast no need of us,
Or pipe or wire,
That hast the golden bee
Ripened with fire;
And many thousand more
Songsters, that thee adore,
Filling earth's grassy floor
With new desire.

Thou hast thy mighty herds,
Tame, and free livers;
Doubt not, thy music too
In the deep rivers;
And the whole plumy flight,
Warbling the day and night-
Up at the gates of light,
See, the lark quivers !
When with the jacinth

Coy fountains are tressed And for the mournful bird Greenwoods are dressed, That did for Tereus pine; Then shall our songs be thine, To whom our hearts incline: May, be thou blest!

Sonnets.

The Summer, the divinest Summer burns,
The skies are bright with azure and with gold;
The mavis, and the nightingale, by turns,

Amid the woods a soft enchantment hold: ' The flowering woods, with glory and delight, Their tender leaves unto the air have spread; The wanton air, amid their alleys bright,

Doth softly fly, and a light fragrance shed: The nymphs within the silver fountains play, The angels on the golden banks recline, Wherein great Flora, in her bright array,

Hath sprinkled her ambrosial sweets divine: Or, else, I gaze upon that beauteous face, O Amoret! and think these sweets have place.

O Moon, that shinest on this heathy wild,
And light'st the hill of Hastings with thy ray,
How am I with thy sad delight beguiled,
How hold with fond imagination play!
By thy broad taper I call up the time
When Harold on the bleeding verdure lay,
Though great in glory, overstained with crime,
And fallen by his fate from kingly sway!
On bleeding knights, and on war-broken arms,
Torn banners and the dying steeds you shone,
When this fair England, and her peerless charms,
And all, but honour, to the foe were gone!
Here died the king, whom his brave subjects chose,
But, dying, lay amid his Norman foes!

Charles Lamb, in a communication to the London Magazine, says of Lord Thurlow: 'A profusion of verbal dainties, with a disproportionate

To a Bird that haunted the Waters of Lacken in the
Winter.

O melancholy bird, a winter's day
Thou standest by the margin of the pool,
And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school
To patience, which all evil can allay.
God has appointed thee the fish thy prey;
And given thyself a lesson to the fool
Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule,

And his unthinking course by thee to weigh.
There need not schools, nor the professor's chair,
Though these be good, true wisdom to impart.
He who has not enough, for these, to spare
Of time, or gold, may yet amend his heart,
And teach his soul, by brooks and rivers fair :
Nature is always wise in every part.

THOMAS MOORE.

A rare union of wit and sensibility, of brilliant fancy and of varied and diligent study, is exemplified in the poetical works of THOMAS MOORE. Mr Moore was a native of Dublin, born on the 28th of May 1779. He early began to rhyme, and a sonnet to his schoolmaster, Mr Samuel Whyte, written in his fourteenth year, was published in a Dublin magazine,* to which he contributed other pieces. The parents of our poet were Roman Catholics, a body then proscribed and depressed by penal enactments, and they seem to have been of the number who, to use his own words, 'hailed the first dazzling outbreak of the French Revolution as a signal to the slave, wherever suffering, that the day of his deliverance was near at hand.' The poet states that in 1792 he was taken by his father to one of the dinners given in honour of that great event, and sat upon the knee of the chairman while the following toast was enthusiastically sent round: 'May the breezes from France fan our Irish Oak into verdure.' Parliament having, in 1793, opened the university to Catholics, young Moore was sent to college, and distinguished himself by his classical acquirements. In 1799, he proceeded to London to study law in the Middle Temple, and publish by subscription a translation of Anacreon. The latter appeared in the following year, dedicated to the Prince of Wales. At a subsequent period, Mr Moore was among the keenest satirists of this prince, for which he has been accused of ingratitude; but he states himself that the whole amount of his obli

* Mr Whyte was also the teacher of Sheridan, and it is curious to learn that, after about a year's trial, Sherry was pronounced, both by tutor and parent, to be an incorrigible dunce! At the time,' says Mr Moore, when I first began to attend his school, Mr Whyte still continued, to the no small alarm of many parents, to encourage a taste for acting among his pupils. In this line I was long his favourite show-scholar; and among the play-bills introduced in his volume, to illustrate the occasions of his own prologues and epilogues, there is one of a play got up in the year 1790, at Lady Borrowes's private theatre in Dublin, where, among the items of the evening's entertainment, is An Epilogue, A Squeeze to St Paul's, Master Moore.

""

"

gations to his royal highness was the honour of dining twice at Carlton House, and being admitted to a great fête given by the prince in 1811 on his being made regent. In 1801, Moore ventured on assumed name of Thomas Little-an allusion to his diminutive stature. In these pieces the warmth of the young poet's feelings and imagination led him to trespass on delicacy and decorum. He had the good sense to be ashamed of these amatory juvenilia, and genius enough to redeem the fault. His offence did not stand in the way of his preferment. In 1803 Mr Moore obtained an official situation at Bermuda, the duties of which were discharged by a deputy; and this subordinate proving unfaithful, the poet suffered pecuniary losses and great embarrassment. Its first effect however, was two volumes of poetry, a series of Odes and Epistles, published in 1806, and written during an absence of fourteen months from Europe, while the author visited Bermuda. The descriptive sketches in this work are remarkable for their fidelity, no less than their poetical beauty. The style of Moore was now formed, and in all his writings there is nothing finer than the opening epistle to Lord Strangford, written on board ship by moonlight:

A Moonlight Scene at Sea. Sweet moon! if, like Crotona's sage, By any spell my hand could dare To make thy disk its ample page,

And write my thoughts, my wishes there; How many a friend, whose careless eye Now wanders o'er that starry sky, Should smile, upon thy orb to meet The recollection kind and sweet, The reveries of fond regret,

The promise never to forget,

And all my heart and soul would send
To many a dear-loved, distant friend. . . .
Even now, delusive hope will steal
Amid the dark regrets I feel,
Soothing, as yonder placid beam

Pursues the murmurers of the deep,
And lights them with consoling gleam,
And smiles them into tranquil sleep.
Oh! such a blessed night as this

I often think, if friends were near, How should we feel, and gaze with bliss Upon the moon-bright scenery here! The sea is like a silvery lake,

And o'er its calm the vessel glides Gently, as if it feared to wake

The slumber of the silent tides! The only envious cloud that lowers,

Hath hung its shade on Pico's height, Where dimly 'mid the dusk he towers,

And, scowling at this heaven of light, Exults to see the infant storm

Cling darkly round his giant form!