First, here's a card from Mrs Grimes,

« A Ball !"-she knows that I'm no dancer That woman's asked me fifty times,

And yet I never send an answer. * Dear Jack,

Just lend me twenty pounds,
Till Monday next, when I'll return it.
Yours truly,
Henry Gibbs.”

Why,

zds I've seen the man but twice-here, burn it. One from my cousin, Sophy Daw,

Full of Aunt Margery's distresses. “ The cat has kitten'd in the draw,'

And ruin'd two bran-new silk dresses." From Sam, “ The Chancellor's motto"-nay,

Confound his puns, he knows I hate 'em; “ Pro Rege, Lege, Grege”—aye,

“ For king read mob?” Brougham's old erratum. From Seraphina Price_" At two

Till then I can't, my dearest John, stir." Two more, because I did not go,

Beginning “ Wretch !" and "Faithless monster!" “ Dear Sir,

This morning Mrs P,
Who's doing quite as well as may be,
Presented me at half-past three

Precisely, with another baby;

"We'll name it John, and know with pleasure You'll stand"- -Five guineas more, confound it!— I wish they'd call'd it Nebuchadnezzar,

Or thrown it in the Thames, and drown'd it.

128

"And then, perhaps, you will as well see
The poor dear fellow safe to school,
At Dr Smith's, in Little Chelsea ?"
Heaven send he flog the little fool!

SING me a song about Pan,
Cloven-foot Capricorn, son

And darling of Hermes; who frisking it ran

O'er woody cragg'd Pisa, in fun,

And frolic, and laughter, with skipping nymphs after
Him shouting out-Pan-Pan.

Pan, merry musical Pan,

Piping o'er mountainous top,

Rough-headed, shaggy, and rusty like tan,

Dancing where'er the goats crop,

The precipice round, as his hoofs strike the ground,
With their musical clōp-clop.

Pan is the lord of the hills,

With their summits all cover'd with snow;

Pan is lord of the brooks, of the rivers, and rills,
That murmur in thickets below;

There he saunters along, and listens their song,
And bends his shagg'd ears as they flow.

[July,

Where the goats seem to hang in the air,

And the cliffs touch the clouds with their jags,
Sometimes he hurries and leaps here and there,

Skipping o'er wbite-shining crags,
And quick to descry, with his keen searching eye,

Bounds after the swift-footed stags.
Pan drives before him the flocks,

To shades of cool caverns he takes,
And gathers them round him; and under deep rocks

Of the reeds his new instrument makes;
And with out-piping lips he blows into their tips,

And the spirit of melody wakes.
Pan mighty wonders achieves

With his capriciosos, preferr'd
To the honey-tongued nightingale, hid in the leaves
. When her out-pouring 'plaining is heard.
For Pan, sweet musician, with grace and precision,

Pipes far sweeter notes than the bird.
As the swift-footed nymphs round the fountains

Encircle the dark-welling spring,
And mock-loving echo bears off to the mountains

And throws back the music they sing-
Sly Pan he comes peeping, and daintly creeping

Adroitly bounds into the ring.
O'er his back is the skin of the Jynx,

And he leads with a pleasant constraint
The nymphs to a soft meadow perfumed with pinks

That the crocus and hyacinth paint ;
And there he rejoices in all their sweet voices,

Rehearsing their chronicles quaint.
They sang of Olympus the blest,

And the gods in that heavenly hall,
And of Hermes Inventor, much more than the rest,

Who was chosen the herald of all.
How seeking Cyllene, his own fair demesne, he

Drove goats as a goatherd to stall.
Upon Arcady's stream-gushing rocks
Descended, he chanced

to behold
As he went into service, and tended the flocks,

Fair Dryope's tresses of gold;
And the passion excited was duly requited,

For she too was not very cold.

She bore him a wonderful son,

Goat-footed, capricorn rough,
With a strange visage curl'd into laughter and fun,

And indeed it was frightful enough:
For the nurse, in dismay, ran shrieking away,

When she saw the babe bearded and bluff.

But Hermes he dandled the boy,

And thought him the merriest imp,
He feather'd his ankles with infinite joy,

For he was not the godhead to limp;
Then he wrapp'd him up snug in a hare-skin rug,

And away he went up to Olymp.
VOL. XXX. NO, CLXXXII.

Jupiter sat not alone,

But bis time with his deities whild,
When Hermes arrived and sat down at his throne,

Look'd round to their worships and smiled,
Then his hundle untied, and pleasantly cried,

“ Look ye all at my beautiful child !"

*

Raptures affected the gods,

(On earth we should say to a man,)
And Bacchus the most: winks, gestures, and nods

Put in motion the whole divan.
'Twas a * panto-mime to the gods sublime

So they gave him the name of Pan.
Pan, Pan, merry Pan-
Pan, the dispenser of mirth,
With thy horn, and thy hoof, and complexion of tan,

Still deign to visit this earth..
And thy praise shall be long, though short is the song,

That has told of thy wond'rous birth.

* Because he pleased ravi, saith the original. ---AU being no play on the word Pan, I have chosen a word that has, and perhaps somewhat expresses the same idea.

THE RIVER NIGER-TERMINATION IN THE SEA.

LETTER FROM JAMES MACQUEEN, ESQ.

TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

Sir,-Last autumn you received of the important geographical fact, an article from me containing a re- which, from long and patient enview of Clapperton's last, Lander's quiry, and from good authority, (aufirst, and De Caillé's late travels in thority which has not been, because Africa, together with such farther in- it could not be, contradicted,) I had so formation as I had obtained relative often, and so many years ago, laid to the termination of the great river before the public. Niger in the Atlantic Ocean. This arti- Justice to myself and justice to cle was in types, and was to have ap- the important subject, however, repeared in your September Number, quire of me at this moment to draw, along with a corrected map of the and as shortly as possible, the attencourse and termination of the Niger. tion of the public to the facts conThe length of the article, and the way cerning this case. in which your columns have been Sixteen years ago, I pointed out in occupied with important political a small treatise, published in this discussions, have hitherto prevented city, that the Niger terminated in the the appearance of my communica- Atlantic Ocean in the Bight of Benin tion in your widely circulated publi- and Biafra, and it is exactly eleven cation. I am now, however, better years since I laid before his Majespleased that it should stand over till ty's government, in the several pubthe publication of Lander's new lic departments, a memorial, accomwork, as the whole subject of Afri- panied by a map, upon a very large can geography can then be more scale, pointing out the important fact, satisfactorily brought forward in one and shewing the course of the Niger view, that enterprising traveller ha- and its principal tributary streams ving just arrived in England, with through the interior of Northern Afthe confirmation, from personal re- rica, downwards to the Atlantic search and ocular demonstration, Ocean. This memorial also went