often expreffed in very bitter terms when in the company of his intimates. He was accustomed to ftile that Monarch a bloody and remorseless tyrant, and would commonly add, that "fo far from this country receiving any benefit from him, he and his favourites only were the gainers."

Swift dined one day with feveral friends of both parties in Crow-street, when the conversation turned upon a paraphrafe Concannon had lately made of Prior's celebrated epitaph. It was as follows;

Hold MATTHEW PRIOR, by your leave,
Your epitaph is somewhat odd;
BOURBON and you were fons of Eve,
NASSAU the offspring of a God.

The Dean, fhaking his head, faid, "Let us fee whether a man, who is neither a fool nor a parafite, cannot write four lines that will found as well as those," and taking Doctor Sheridan's pencil wrote the following:

Hold friend CONCANNON, by your leave,
Your paraphrafe is rather civil;

BOURBON and MAT were fons of EVE,

NASSAU the offspring of a DEVIL.

AN ODE

TO

NARCISSA.

HY fatal fhafts unerring move;

TH

I bow before thine altar, Love!

I feel thy foft, refiftless flame

Glide swift through all my vital frame!

For while I gaze my bofom glows,
My blood in tides impetuous flows;
Hope, fear, and joy alternate roll,
And floods of transport whelm my foult

My fault'ring tongue attempts in vain
In foothing murmurs to complain;
My tongue some secret magic ties,
My murmurs fink in broken fighs!

Condemn'd to nurfe eternal care,
And ever drop the filent tear;
Unheard I mourn, unknown I figh,
Unfriended live, unpitied die!

SINGULAR

SINGULAR ACT OF GENEROSITY AND CONTINENCE.

HE Marquis de Breze, Admiral of France,

THE

fon to a Marshal and Duke of the fame name, had a visit paid him at Paris by a widow and her daughter, of a neighbouring province to that of his family; the daughter was of a comely ftature, her features regular, her complexion admirable, and about fix years younger than the Admiral, who was then of much the fame age with Scipio, when he conquered Carthage.

The mother began first to tell him her name, by which it appeared fhe was one of the best families in Anjou, and then declared to him, that he was engaged in a troublesome fuit at law, which [endangered her whole, and that a small, eftate; that she had borrowed of all her friends; that a wicked and cheating lawyer was fully refolved to reduce her to a moft fhameful poverty, and without powerful fupport would carry his point,

The Admiral prayed her to accept of three hundred louis d'ors to carry on her fuit, and gave

:

orders for a coach to be fent to her every morn

ing, in which she might go and fee her judges: He himself became her folicitor, and managed the business fo well, that fhe carried the cause, and recovered full costs against her adversary.

When, after all this, the Lady went to thank the young Admiral for all the favours he had been pleased to heap upon her, she gave him to understand that she could not exprefs how much she was indebted to him, and that she had nothing but her daughter, then prefent, that could make him fatisfaction for his kindness to her.

The Admiral being furprized with an offer fo little expected, took aside the young lady, in the prefence of her mother, to a corner of the chamber, declared to her in what manner her honour and falvation were in danger, and advised her to give herself to none but God; and because he found fhe was already in the fame opinion with him, he took both mother and daughter into the coach, and carried them to a convent, where he left the young lady.

When he had paid the pension due for the first ycar, a day or two before she was profeffed, he gave the Abbefs of the Monaftery eight hundred piftoles, and caufed an Act to be passed in the

name

name of the young lady, without mentioning his own name in it. There could be nothing (allowing for the fuperftition of the times) more generous, or more heroic, than this.

ANECDOTE

OF THE EARL OF STAIR,

AMBASSADOR AT THE COURT OF VERSAILLES,

IN THE REIGN OF GEORGE I.

NE day the Regent of France, attended with a moft fplendid retinue, went in his

ON

a

coach to pay the British Ambaffador (the Earl of Stair) a vifit; which his Excellency being informed of, prepared for his reception. The coach halted at the gate; and when the Earl of Stair came out of his apartment, the Regent rofe up, partly alighted from his coach, fet one foot on the ground, and kept the other fixed on the step. His Excellency, in the mean time, was advancing out of the gate; but obferving the posture the Regent was in, he ftopped fhort, then turned about, and walked three or four times backward

and