"Come, let us all agree,

And join most cheerfully,

This day to pass;

In honour of our new Peer,

May we thus every year

Push round the glass."

No bad wish, you will say, for an inn-keeper: but I am satisfied the author had no more idea of self-love, or self-interest while she wrote, than had the merry mortals who sung and resung her strain. Whoever could enter into the sentiment, I will be sworn would have been wel come to the most exhilarating accompaniments of her cellar, And as for criticism upon the poetry, the Cynic whose brow could have wrinkled at the humble efforts of a self-taught, happy being, in the momentary overflowings of her gratitude, ought never to smile again, or have cause to smile,

LETTER XV.

ROAD SIDE, between HOUGHTON and FAKENHAM.

AFTER you have passed the boundary of Houghton plantations, you will meet nothing to win attention from reflections on the past, till you reach FAKENHAM; if, peradventure, you do not immediately direct your steps to HOLKHAM: unless, indeed, you should be induced to pass a few minutes at the outskirt of the village of East Rudham, and there converse with my poor ANTHONY FLOWER, the old man of the gate.

Thirty and seven years has this veteran sat, as he told me, in the capacity of clerk under the minister, and, every Sabbath-day sits under him still; "because the minister, Sir," says he, "will not part with me, and because we have

gotten into years together."

years together." (I am using Anthony's words,) "GOD be bless'd! I can say Amen still, and, except now and then, in the right places; and when I don't so cleverly hit it off, as I us'd to do, master gives me a nudge, and I am almost sure to have it next time."

He told me, moreover, that the minister has a fine voice, and always marks the closing words of a prayer with more force, to serve as a cue to the clerk. Anthony has kept a gate, which will find at the end of the town, you upwards of seven years; in Winter he pulls it open to the passengers from a mossed hut, which seems a part of himself; in summer, from the bank, where the sods are formed into a pleasant seat, and where he can feel that cordial of age, the nourishment of the sun. He was born in the year eleven; and though now demi-deaf, and more than demi-blindfor he is almost in total darkness- he contrives to carry on his double duties as usual; “Yes— thank GOD-old master still likes to have me pottering about him, Sir," said Anthony, “and, I fancy, he would miss me of a Sabbath, if he

did not see me, as much as all of the parish would his discourse- for he's a fine discourser, and practises as well. Ay, and I should miss him as much if I did not hear him; and I have often said, if any body else should sit under him, and take away my Amen while I can call it, it would go hard with me. I am a poor man, to be sure, Sir, but I had rather throw myself wholly on my gate-gettings, than lose my seat under my minister, though I should not get a farthing for doing it."

But is it not difficult for you to get either to your gate or your pew, Anthony? questioned I.

No;" he answered, "not so much as I might think." 'Tis true, he was getting feebler and feebler every day, and he could not do a sort himself: but his town-folk were very good natur'd to him, because he never did harm to any of them, but now and then, times are gone, a good turn: his little grand-daughter, every night at sun-set, led him from his gate to the village: his wife, though, to be sure, be-crippled, always made shift, hitherto, to ring his Sabbath, and his burial bells

to chime in and to chime out - his little grand-daughter would shoot up soon, and be able to do more for him in a year or two- if it should please God to let him live so longbut as he did not like to take up her time now, as he loved her, and paid for her schooling, he gave her every twelfth halfpenny he got at his gate; and as she was a very good, pretty-likelooking girl, he wished to give her some learning; so got one neighbour or another, as he went to work, to help him to his gate. "I was always up betimes, Sir," added Anthony, "and in my young years as stirring as any of them. Why, for a sort of years I was a carrier, and walked twice a week by the side of my cart for I was almost too proud, with such a pair of legs under me, to ride-from Lynn, Rudham, and other places, to Norwich, and back again as well; and as to wrestling, singlesticking, and such like, few could match ANTHONY FLOWER."

The remains of this man moved at once my pity and my reverence: the frame which is now bowed with, literally, the weight of years, must