youth! What a heretic! O divine wisdom, let us get rid of him, or we shall all go to the wicked place together!" In short, Ver-Vert is fairly put in his cage, and sent on his travels back again. They pronounce him detestable, abominable, a condemned criminal, convicted of having endeavoured to pollute the virtue of the holy sisters. All the convent sign his decree of banishment, but they shed tears in doing it. It was impossible not to pity a reprobate in the flower of his age, who was unfortunate enough to hide such a depraved heart under an exterior so beautiful. For his part, Ver-Vert desired nothing better than to be off. He was carried back to the river side in a box, and did not bite the lay-sister again. But what was the despair, when he returned home, and would fain have given his old instructors a like serenade! Nine venerable sisters, their eyes in tears, their senses confused with horror, their veils two deep, condemned him in full conclave. The younger ones, who might have spoken for him, were not allowed to be present. One or two were for sending him back to the vessel; but the majority resolved upon keeping and chastising him. He was sentenced to two months' abstinence, three of imprisonment, and four of silence. No garden, no toilet, no bed-room, no little cakes. Nor was this all. The sisters chose for his jailer the very Alecto of the convent, a hideous old fury, a veiled ape, an octogenary skeleton, a spectacle made on purpose for the eye of a penitent. In spite of the cares of this inflexible Argus, some amiable nuns would often come with their sympathy to relieve the horrors of the bird's imprisonment. Sister Rosalie, more than once, brought him almonds before breakfast. But what are almonds in a room cut off from the rest of the world! What are sweetmeats in captivity but bitter herbs? Covered with shame and instructed by misfortune, or weary of the eternal old hag his companion, our hero at last found himself contrite. He forgot the dragoons and the monk, and once more in unison with the holy sisters both in matter and manner, became more devout than a canon. When they were sure of his conversion, the divan re-assembled, and agreed to shorten the term of his penitence. Judge if the day of his deliverance was a day of joy! All his future moments, consecrated to gratitude, were to be spun by the hands of love and security. O faithless pleasure! O vain expectation of mortal delight! All the dormitories were dressed with flowers. Exquisite coffee, songs, lively exercise, an amiable tumult of pleasure, a plenary indulgence of liberty, all breathed of love and delight; nothing announced the coming adversity. But, O indiscreet liberality! O fatal overflowingness of the hearts of nuns! Passing too quickly from abstinence to abundance, from the hard bosom of misfortune to whole seas of sweetness, saturated with sugar and set on fire with liqueurs, Ver-Vert fell one day on a box of sweetmeats, and lay on his deathbed. His roses were all changed to cypress. In vain the sisters endeavoured to recall his fleeting spirit. The sweet excess had hastened his destiny, and the fortunate victim of love expired in the bosom of pleasure. His last words were much admired, but history has not recorded them. Venus herself, closing his eyelids, took him with her into the little Elysium described by the lover of Corinna, where Ver-Vert assumed his station among the heroes of the parrot race, close to the one that was the subject of the poet's elegy.* To describe how his death was lamented, is impossible. The present history was taken from one of the circulars composed by the nuns on the occasion. His portrait was painted after nature. More than one hand gave him a new life in colours and embroidery; and Grief, taking up the stitches in her turn, drew his effigies in the midst of a border of tears of white silk. All the funeral honours were paid him, which Helicon is accustomed to pay to illustrious birds. His mausoleum was built at the foot of a myrtle; and on a piece of porphyry environed with flowers, the tender Artemisias placed the following epitaph, inscribed in letters of gold : O, ye who come to tattle in this wood, * See Ovid, Liber Amorum. Book II. Elegy 6. -- Hold for one moment (if ye can) your tongues, They say, nevertheless, that the shade of the bird is not in the tomb. The immortal parrot, according to good authority, survives in the nuns themselves; and is destined, through all ages, to transfer, from sister to sister, his soul and his tattle. SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES. No. I. Paucity of collections of our female poetry.-Specimens of Anne Bullen, Queen Elizabeth, Lady Elizabeth Carew, Lady Mary Wroth, Katharine Philips, the Duchess of Newcastle, Anne Killigrew, the Marchioness of Wharton, Mrs. Taylor, Aphra Behn, and the Countess of Winchelsea. ABOUT a hundred years ago, a collection of the poetry of our fair countrywomen was made under the title of "Poems by Eminent Ladies;" and twenty years ago, a second appeared, under the title at the head of this paper. These, we believe, are the only two publications of the kind ever known in England; a circumstance hardly to the credit of the public, when it is considered what stuff it has put up with in collections of "British Poets," and how far superior such verse-writers as Lady Winchelsea, Mrs. Barbauld, and Charlotte Smith were to the Sprats, and Halifaxes, and Stepneys, and Wattses that were re-edited by Chalmers, Anderson, and Dr. Johnson; to say nothing of the women of genius that |