66

and have requested Mr. Ketch to accept the assurances of my distinguished consideration," for taking the trouble off my own hands. I am capable of feeling now why the Neapolitans, in the last invasion, boggled about exchanging, upon a mere point of honour, their sunny skies, "love-breathing woods and lute resounding waves," and the sight of the dancing Mediterranean, for the silence and darkness of the cold blind tomb. Falstaffs in every thing, they "like not such grinning honour as Sir Walter hath." From the same cause, the luxurious Asiatics have always fallen an easy prey to the invader; while the Arab has invariably been ready to fight for his burning sands, and the Scythian for his snows, not because they overvalued their country, but because its hardships had made them undervalue life. Many men cling to existence to perpetuate pleasures, as there are some who, will even court death to procure them. Gibbon records what he terms the enthusiasm of a young Mussulman, who threw himself upon the enemy's lances, singing religious hymns, proclaiming that he saw the black-eyed Houris of Paradise waiting with open arms to embrace him, and cheerfully sought destruction that he might revel in lasciviousness. This is not the fine courage of principle, nor the fervour of patriotism, but the drunkenness of sensuality. The cunning de vice of Mahomet, in offering a posthumous bonus to those who would have their throats cut for the furtherance of his ambition, was but an imitation of Odin and other northern butchers; and what is glory, in its vulgar acceptation, stars, crosses, ribbons, titles,

public funerals, and national monuments, but the blinding baubles with which more legitimate slaughterers lure on dupes and victims to their own destruction? These sceptred jugglers shall never coax a bayonet into my body, nor wheedle a bullet into my brain; for I had rather go without rest altogether, than sleep in the bed of honour. So far from understanding the ambition of being turned to dust, I hold with the old adage about the living dog and the dead lion. I am pigeon-livered, and lack gall to encounter the stern scythe-bearing skeleton. When I return to the land of fogs I may get courage to look him in the skull; but it unnerves one to think of quitting such delicious skies, and rustling copses, and thick-flowered meads, and Favonian gales, as these which now surround me; and it is intolerable to reflect, that yonder blazing sun may shine upon my grave without imparting to me any portion of his cheerful warmth, or that the blackbird, whom I now hear warbling as if his heart were running over with joy, may perch upon my tombstone without my hearing a single note of his song.

As it has been thought that the world existed many ages without any inhabitants whatever, was next subjected to the empire of brutes, and now constitutes the dominion of man, it would seem likely, that in its progressive advancement to higher destinies it may ulti mately have lords of the creation much superior to ourselves, who may speak compassionately of the degradation it experienced under human possession, and congratulate themselves on the extinction of that pugnacious and mischievous biped called Man. The face of Nature

is still young; it exhibits neither wrinkles nor decay; whether radiant with smiles or awfully beautiful in frowns, it is still enchanting, and not less fraught with spiritual than material attractions, if we do but know how to moralize upon her features and presentments. To consider, for instance, this balmy air which is gently waving the branches of a chestnut-tree before my eyes-what a mysterious element it is! Powerful enough to shipwreck navies, and tear up the deepgrappling oak, yet so subtle as to be invisible, and so delicate as not to wound the naked eye. Naturally imperishable, who can imagine all the various purposes to which the identical portion may have been applied, which I am at this instant inhaling? Perhaps at the creation it served to modulate into words the sublime command, "Let there be light," when the blazing sun rolled itself together, and upheaved from chaos :-perhaps impelled by the jealous Zephyrus, it urged Apollo's quoit against the blue-veined forehead of Hyacinthus ;-it may perchance have filled the silken sails of Cleopatra's vessel, as she floated down the Cydnus; or have burst from the mouth of Cicero in the indignant exordium-“ Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientiâ nostrâ?" or his still more abrupt exclamation, "Abiit—evasitexcessit-erupit !" It may have given breath to utter the noble dying speeches of Socrates in his prison, of Sir Philip Sidney on the plains of Zutphen, of Russell at the block. But the same inexhaustible element which would supply endless matter for my reflections, may perhaps pass into the mouth of the reader, and

be vented in a peevish-" Psha! somewhat too much of this," and I shall therefore hasten to take my leave of him, claiming some share of credit, that when so ample a range was before me, my speculations should so soon, like the witches in Macbeth, have "made themselves air, into which they vanished."

THE FIRST OF MARCH.

THE bud is in the bough, and the leaf is in the bud,
And Earth's beginning now in her veins to feel the blood,
Which, warm'd by summer suns in th' alembic of the vine,
From her founts will over-run in a ruddy gush of wine.

The perfume and the bloom that shall decorate the flower,
Are quickening in the gloom of their subterranean bower;
And the juices meant to feed trees, vegetables, fruits,
Unerringly proceed to their pre-appointed roots.

How awful is the thought of the wonders under ground,
Of the mystic changes wrought in the silent, dark profound;
How each thing upward tends by necessity decreed,
And a world's support depends on the shooting of a seed !

The Summer's in her ark, and this sunny-pinion'd day
Is commission'd to remark whether Winter holds her sway:
Go back, thou dove of peace, with the myrtle on thy wing,
Say that floods and tempests cease, and the world is ripe for
Spring.

Thou hast fann'd the sleeping Earth till her dreams are all of flowers,

And the waters look in mirth for their overhanging bowers ; The forest seems to listen for the rustle of its leaves,

And the very skies to glisten in the hope of summer eves.

Thy vivifying spell has been felt beneath the wave,

By the dormouse in its cell, and the mole within its cave;
And the summer tribes that creep, or in air expand their wing,
Have started from their sleep at the summons of the Spring.

The cattle lift their voices from the valleys and the hills,
And the feather'd race rejoices with a gush of tuneful bills;
And if this cloudless arch fills the poet's song with glee,
O thou sunny first of March, be it dedicate to thee.

PETER-PINDARICS.

The Milkmaid and the Banker.

A MILKMAID with a very pretty face,
Who lived at Acton,

Had a black Cow, the ugliest in the place,
A crooked-back'd one,

A beast as dangerous, too, as she was frightful,
Vicious and spiteful,

And so confirm'd a truant, that she bounded
Over the hedges daily, and got pounded.
'Twas all in vain to tie her with a tether,
For then both cord and cow eloped together.
Arm'd with an oaken bough, (what folly!

It should have been of birch, or thorn, or holly,)
Patty one day was driving home the beast,

Which had, as usual, slipp'd its anchor,

When on the road she met a certain Banker,

Who stopp'd to give his eyes a feast

By gazing on her features, crimson'd high
By a long cow-chase in July.

"Are

you from Acton, pretty lass?" he cried : Yes,”—with a curtsey she replied.