Nature, a mother kind alike to all,

Still grants her bliss at labour's earnest call;
With food as well the peasant is supplied
On Idra's cliffs as Arno's shelvy side;

And though the rocky-crested summits frown,
These rocks, by custom, turn to beds of down.
From art more various are the blessings sent;
Wealth, commerce, honour, liberty, content.
Yet these each other's power so strong contest,
That either seems destructive of the rest.
Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails;
And honour sinks, where commerce long prevails.
Hence every state, to one loved blessing prone,
Conforms and models life to that alone.
Each to the fav'rite happiness attends,
And spurns the plan that aims at other ends;
Till, carried to excess in each domain,
This fav'rite good begets peculiar pain.

But let us try these truths with closer eyes,
And trace them through the prospect as it lies:
Here for a while my proper cares resign'd,
Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind;
Like yon neglected shrub, at random cast,
That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast.
Far to the right where Apennine ascends,
Bright as the summer, Italy extends;
Its uplands sloping deck the mountain's side,
Woods over woods in gay theatric pride;
While oft some temple's mould'ring tops between
With venerable grandeur mark the scene.

Could Nature's bounty satisfy the breast,
The sons of Italy were surely bless'd.
Whatever fruits in different climes were found,
That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground
Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear,
Whose bright succession decks the varied year;
Whatever sweets salute the northern sky
With vernal lives, that blossom but to die;
These here disporting own the kindred soil,
Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil;
While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land.
But small the bliss that sense alone bestows,
And sensual bliss is all the nation knows.
In florid beauty groves and fields appear,
Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.
Contrasted faults through all his manners reign;
Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain;
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue;
And even in penance planning sins anew.
All evis here contaminate the mind,
That opulence departed leaves behind;
For wealth was theirs, not far removed the date
When commerce proudly flourished through the state:
At her command the palace learn'd to rise,
Again the long-fall'n column sought the skies;
The canvas glow'd beyond e'en Nature warm,
The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form:
Till, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Commerce on other shores display'd her sail;
While nought remain'd of all that riches gave,

But towns unmann'd, and lords without a slave:
And late the nation found with fruitless skill
Its former strength was but plethoric ill.

Yet still the loss of wealth is here supplied
By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride;
From these the feeble heart and long-fallen mind
An easy compensation seem to find.

Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array'd,
The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade;
Processions form'd for piety and love,

A mistress or a saint in every grove.

By sports like these are all their cares beguiled,
The sports of children satisfy the child;
Each nobler aim, repress'd by long control,

Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul;

While low delights, succeeding fast behind,

In happier meanness occupy the mind:

As in those domes, where Cæsars once bore sway,
Defaced by time and tott'ring in decay,
There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed;
And, wondering man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.

My soul, turn from them, turn we to survey
Where rougher climes a nobler race display,
Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread;
No product here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword.
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter lingering chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
But meteor's glare, and stormy glooms invest.

Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.
Though poor the peasant's hut, his feast though small,
He sees his little lot the lot of all;

Sees no contiguous palace rear its head
To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal,
To make him loathe his vegetable meal;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.
Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls the finny deep,
Or drives his venturous ploughshare to the steep;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
And drags the struggling savage into day.
At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze;
While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board:
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.

Thus every good his native wilds impart,
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;
And e'en those hills, that round his mansion rise
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.

Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,
Clings close and closer to the mother's breast,
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
Bnt bind him to his native mountains more.
Such are the charms to barren states assign'd;
Their wants but few, their wishes all confined.
Yet let them only share the praises due,

If few their wants, their pleasures are but few;
For every want that stimulates the breast
Becomes a source of pleasure when redress'd.
Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies,
That first excites desire, and then supplies;
Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy;
Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,
Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame.
Their level life is but a smouldering fire,
Unquench'd by want, unfann'd by strong desire;
Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer
On some high festival of once a year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.

But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow:
Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low;
For, as refinement stops, from sire to son,
Unalter'd, unimprov'd, the manners run;
And love's and friendship's finely-pointed dart
Fall blunted from each indurated heart.
Some sterner virtue's o'er the mountain's breast
May sit, like falcon's cowering on the nest;
But all the gentler morals, such as play

Through life's more cultured walks, and charm the way,
These, far dispersed on timorous pinions fly,

To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.

To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,

I turn; and France displays her bright domain.
Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please,
How often have I led thy sportive choir,
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire!
Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And, freshen'd from the wave, the zephyr flew;
And haply, though my harsh touch fault'ring still,
But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill;
Yet would the village praise my wondrons power,
And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide hour.

Have led their children through th mirthful maze,
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore,
Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.
So bless'd a life these thoughtless realms display,
Thus idly busy rolls their world away:
Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
For honour forms the social temper here:
Honour, that praise which real merit gains,
Or even imaginary worth obtains,

Here passes current; paid from hand to hand,
It shifts in splendid traffic round the land:
From courts to camps, to cottages it strays,

And all are taught an avarice of praise;
They please, are pleased, they give to get esteem,
Till, seeming bless'd, they grow to what they seem.
But while this softer art their bliss supplies,
It gives their follies also room to rise;
For praise too dearly loved, or warmly sought,
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought:
And the weak soul, within itself unbless'd,
Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.
Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art,
Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
Here vanity assumes her pert grimace,
And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace;
Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer,
To boast one splendid banquet once a year;
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws
Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.

To men of other minds my fancy flies,
Embosom'd in the deep where Holland lies.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
Where the broad ocean leans against the land,
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride.
Onward, methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm-connected bulwark seems to grow;
Spreads its long arms amidst the wat'ry roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore.
While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;
The slow canal, the yellow-blossom'd vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescued from his reign.
Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil
Impels the native to repeated toil,
Industrious habits in each bosom reign,

And industry begets a love of gain.

Hence all the good from opulence that springs,
With all those ills superfluous treasure brings,
Are here display'd. Their much-loved wealth imparts
Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts;

But view them closer, craft and fraud appear,
Even liberty itself is barter'd here.

At gold's superior charms all freedom flies,
The needy sell it, and the rich man buys;
A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves,
Here wretches seek dishonourable graves,
And calmly bent, to servitude conform,
Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.
Heavens! how unlike their Belgic sires of old!
Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold;
War in each breast, and freedom on each brow;
How much unlike the sons of Britain now!
Fired at the sound, my genius spreads her wing,
And flies where Britain courts the western spring;
Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,
And brighter streams than famed Hydaspes glide.
There all around the gentlest breezes stray,
There gentle music melts on every spray;
Creation's mildest charms are there combined.
Extremes are only in the master's mind!

Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great;
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by;
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,

By forms unfashion'd, fresh from Nature's hand,
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imagin'd right, above control,

While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man.

Thine, freedom, thine the blessings pictured here, Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear; Too bless'd indeed were such without alloy, But foster'd even by freedom, ills annoy; That independence Britons prize too high, Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie; The self-dependent lordlings stand alone, All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown: Here by the bonds of nature feebly held, Minds combat minds, repelling and repelled. Ferments arise, imprisoned factions roar, Represt ambition struggles round her shore, Till overwrought, the general system feels Its motions stop, or frenzy fire the wheels.

Nor this the worst. As nature's ties decay, As duty, love, and honour fail to sway, Fictitions bonds, the bonds of wealth and law, Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe. Hence all obedience bows to these alone, And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown; Till time may come, when, stript of all her charms, The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms, Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame, Where kings have toiled, and poets wrote for fame, One sink of level avarice shall lie,

And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonoured die.

Yet think not, thus when freedom's ills I state,
I mean to flatter kings, or court the great;
Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire,
Far from my bosom drive the low desire;
And thou, fair freedom, taught alike to feel
The rabble's rage, and tyrant's angry steel;
Thou transitory flower, alike undone

By proud contempt or favour's fostering sun,
Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure,
I only would repress them to secure:
For just experience tells, in every soil,

That those who think must govern those that toil;
And all that freedom's highest aims can reach,
Is but to lay proportioned loads on each.
Hence, should one order disproportioned grow,
Its double weight must ruin all below.

O then how blind to all that truth requires,
Who think it freedom when a part aspires!
Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,
Except when fast approaching danger warms:
But when contending chiefs blockade the throne,
Contracting regal power to stretch their own,
When I behold a factious band agree

To call it freedom when themselves are free;

Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw,
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law;
The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam,
Pillaged from slaves to purchase slaves at home;
Fear, pity, justice, indignation start,

Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart;
Till half a patriot, half a coward grown,

I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.

Yes, Brother, curse with me that baleful hour
When first ambition struck at regal power;
And thus polluting honour in its source,
Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force.
Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore,
Her useful sous exchanged for useless ore?
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,
Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste;
Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
Lead stern depopulation in her train,
And over fields where scattered hamlets roso,
In barren solitary pomp repose?
Have we not seen at pleasure's lordly call,
The smiling long-frequented village fall?
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decayed,
The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
Forced from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main;
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thundering sound?

Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays
Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways,
Where beasts with man divided empire claim,
And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim;
There, while above the giddy tempest flies,
And all around distressful yells arise,
The pensive exile, bending with his woe,
To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,1
Casts a long look where England's glories shine,
And bids his bosom sympathize with mine.

Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind:
Why have I strayed from pleasure and repose,
To seek a good each government bestows?
In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find:
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,
Luke's iron crown,2 and Damiens' bed of steel,
To men remote from power but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.

1 This line is said in Croker's Boswell to have been written by Dr. Johnson, as were also the last ten lines of the poem, with the exception of the last couplet but one.

2 Referring to the torture of a red hot iron crown fixed round the head of a rebel in Hungary.

"HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN

NO BREAD."

In the ancient city of Dort, or Dordrecht, in South Holland, on the banks of a canal, dwelt, where his father and grandfather resided before him, Jan Dirk Peereboom. By trade he was a timber-merchant, and was the purchaser of large rafts which were brought down the Rhine for sale, and there broken up; and as there were many saw-mills in Dort, and ship-building forming a large branch of its industry, Jan Dirk Peereboom was a thriving man. He prided himself considerably in being an inhabitant of the same city which gave birth to Gerard Vessius and the brothers De Witt. But Jan Dirk Peereboom lacked somewhat of the usual Dutch prudence in his marriage, for instead of entering into the blessed state of wedlock with the daughter of a neighbouring merchant, where the interests of trade could have also been united, he made an alliance that much disturbed the consciences of his relatives, who were lineal descendants of those excellent and learned worthies who translated the Bible into the Dutch language, John Bogerman, William Baudart, and Gerson Bucer. The alliance into which Jan Dirk Peereboom entered was caused by the timbermerchant, when on a visit to Amsterdam, becoming fascinated with the charms of Madame Coralie Comifo, a principal danseuse of the theatre, and who was in high vogue at the period in the principal city of Holland.

She was a widow; and the cause of her becoming so had created considerable interest amongst the frequenters of the opera; for Monsieur Comifo, getting rich and corpulent on an extravagant salary, was representing Zephyr in a newly imported ballet from Paris, and in which he had to fly lightly through the air; this aerial feat was to be accomplished by the means of wires which were affixed to a sort of pair of stays which were laced round the body of the fat Zephyr, and by which he was to be guided in various directions across the stage. But Monsieur Comifo forgetting his weight, and only thinking of his consequence, insisted on performing this principal part. He got safely through the rehearsals, but alas! on the first night of the representation, as he was most gracefully floating through the scenic air, the wires suddenly snapped, and, piteous to relate, down came Zephyr with such force, that he effectually made his way plump through the stage of the Amsterdam theatre, which,

from the peculiar construction of that aquatic city, could not boast of the convenience of a mezzanità floor: so poor Monsieur Comifo unfortunately fell into the muddy water, on a level with the canals, and surrounded by the huge piles on which the edifice was erected. Before efficient aid could be obtained, for Dutch stage-carpenters are habitually slow, Zephyr was drowned. This proved a considerable damper to the performance of the evening; and some practical economists amongst the spectators, with a proper and exact feeling of commercial arrangement, went and demanded back the price of admission from the moneytaker, as the manager of the theatre had made a breach of his contract. This being refused, the proceeding opened the door to several petty lawsuits, and the case being a novel one, and quite without precedent, the aforesaid suits, which at first were so small that they would barely fit anybody, became gradually enlarged, until they completely enveloped the persons of the fattest and wealthiest burgomasters.

We will not dwell on this painful subject, but skip over a six months' widowhood, when the still charming Madame Coralie was enabled again to skip over the stage with her customary grace and elasticity.

It was about this time that Jan Dirk Peereboom arrived in Amsterdam on business, and having partaken of a plenteous dinner, and indulged in exciting potations, resolved to finish his day's amusement by a visit to the theatre. But oh! when he saw the celebrated Coralie voluptuously dressed-he stared-he was breathless-he fell over head and ears in love with her.

The love of a Dutchman is not of so ardent a nature as his own Geneva; he usually takes it "cold without," but in the instance of Jan Dirk Peereboom it was like igniting a cask of spirits he was all in a blaze; he endeavoured to smoke off his passion, but in vain; the more pipes he smoked, the more enamoured he grew, he neglected all his timber concerns.

"Adieu, for him, The dull engagements of the bustling world! Adien the sick impertinence of praise! And hope, and action! for with her alone, By streams and shades, to steal these sighing hours, Is all he asks, and all that Fate can give."

We have quoted the above lines from Acheinside to give a proper notion of the condition of Jan Dirk Peereboom.

The friends at Dort could not divine what had come to him, or what detained him so long at Amsterdam. Jan Dirk now thought, that as he had observed that perseverance and

Jan Dirk could no longer endure to exist without the fair widow, so he abruptly told her the amount of his fortune, and that, if she refused to accept him for her mate, he would inevitably drown himself in the deepest and muddiest canal.

Now Coralie had a tender heart: she had already lost one lover by drowning (poor Zephyr!), and she took into consideration that the property of Jan Dirk Peereboom was a very comfortable thing to retire upon, that dancing nightly was a great exertion, and that dancing cannot last for ever, though Holbein has endeavoured to perpetuate it in his painted moral "The Dance of Death;" she therefore implored time to consider. Jan Dirk was delighted, for he knew enough of the world to be aware, that if a female demands "time to consider," she has already fully made up her mind. It soon came to preliminaries. At the expiration of six months, the conclusion of Madame Coralie Comifo's theatrical engagement, she was to quit the stage, to be married to Jan Dirk Peereboom according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, as she professed that creed, and was very particular; as well as being also united to him in the Presbyterian form, in which Jan Dirk had been brought up; that her own property was to remain in her possession, and that she was to have the unlimited power of spending it as she pleased. The love of Jan Dirk Peereboom also occasioned him to give way to a most tyrannical requisition, which was no less than that he was to leave off smoking his pipe, as the smell of tobacco was offensive to the olfactory nerves of the fair widow. Coralie made also some other stipulations, which savoured more of a cautious engagement with a playhouse director than an agreeable understanding with a good-natured husband; but these occurred from habit, the lady in her day having always been in turmoil with her managers. Amongst the articles specified, her favourite poodle Mouton (almost as big as a sheep) was, if she required it, to travel with them; and although she did not condescend to

had frequently found the great benefit of her large white, glossy, curled poodle being her compagnon du voyage. This will require a little explanation, but will simply solve itself thus. Madame Coralie, not being permanently attached to the Académie Royale at Paris, frequently visited the provincial theatres of France and the Continent generally. Now everybody who has travelled abroad is aware that there is not the same attention paid by landladies, and chambermaids, and garçons, to the airing of bed-sheets as is practised in England. Indeed, we have heard of the garcon sprinkling the bed-clothes with water in the interim between the departure of one nightly occupant and the arrival of another. Madame Coralie had undergone the usual result of this refreshing proceeding, and rheumatism was consequent; and as rheumatism is decidedly the worst disorder, and the most readily taken, that a public or private dancer can experience, she, with that ingenuity for which French women have always been admired, after dismissing the chambermaid or garçon, ordered Mouton to jump into the bed. The warm silken poodle was so thoroughly accustomed to this, that it became a matter of perfect habit, and if any damp was in the sheets or coverlets, Mouton extracted it unheeded and unhurt, rendering her beloved mistress perfectly safe from the ravages of cold or sciatica, and leaving a minor annoyance only, in the shape of that most active, industrious, and (as it has been proved in this enlightened age) intellectual animal, the Pulex irritans.

The six months glided away, and Jan Dirk Peereboom, after having been kept in the state of misery so delightful to a lover, at length was united to the object of his passion.

He had not dared to mention the matter to his grave friends at Dort. It could not be supposed that the descendants of the celebrated Synod, who were rigid Calvinists, would countenance a marriage with a French operadancer. Perfectly aware of this, Jan Dirk Peereboom, accompanied by Madame, went to Paris.

With infinite astonishment Peter Bogerman, auctioneer and agent at Dort, received directions from Jan Dirk Peereboom to dispose of his house, timber-wharf, stock in trade, ships, barges, &c. &c.