Part 191 (1/2)

”Sir Herbert had one daughter married in Scotland, who seldom or ever visited him; and his only son, who lived with him, had imbibed, from the example of his father, since the death of Lady Williams, a love for solitude, and a partiality for Swansea, that prevented his wishes from roving beyond it. The old English hospitality prevailed in their house, but its visitors were confined to their poorer neighbours, who always found a welcome in it.

”There was a communication through a shrubbery into a part of Sir Herbert's house, in which was my apartment. From thence my Julia could steal unperceived there, when at times she wished to visit me, unrestrained by the necessary formalities of dress or the being observed by the family.”

(To be concluded in our next.)

THE STORM.

A Fragment.

It is dark, and a silent gloom pervades the face of Heaven and of Earth, that makes my soul expand to such a magnitude, as if it would burst the very bosom which contains it.--All is silent!--fear takes possession of my mind; when, from an angry cloud, the liquid flames flash forth with terrible sublimity; darting from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, with such repeated swiftness, blazing expansive through the heaven's high vaults, then on a sudden vanis.h.i.+ng! On rolls the distant thunder solemnly sublime, and with the pelting rain and howling wind, approaches nearer: between each peal out flashes the sulphureous flame, illumining the rus.h.i.+ng cataract with its light; succeeded by a crash most horrible, which shakes the very earth to its centre! Once more a sombre gloom spreads over the face of nature--again, all is terror and confusion!--

DUDLEY.

_WISDOM._

Lessons of Wisdom have never such power over us as when they were wrought into the heart through the ground work of a story which engages the pa.s.sions. Is it that we are like iron and must first be heated before we can be wrought upon? or is the heart so in love with deceit, that where a true report will not reach it, we must cheat it with a fable, in order to come at truth?

_LEVITY._

A Devons.h.i.+re droll has thus burlesqued the lullababy pastoral of Shenstone. ”My banks they are furnish'd with bees, &c.”

My beds are all furnish'd with fleas, Whose bitings invite me to scratch; Well stock'd are my orchards with jays, And my pig sties white over with thatch.

I seldom a pimple have met, Such health does magnecia bestow: My horsepond is border'd with wet, Where burdock and marsh-mallows grow.

_ANECDOTES._

A gentleman, reading in one of the public prints, that Mr. _Monday_, of Oxford, was dead, exclaimed,--”Alas! my friends, we now have reason to lament, like _Aurelius_, that we have _lost a day!_”

A gentleman, reading in one of the daily prints that thirteen hundred of the French had been _drowned_, said, ”Thus should the courage of all our enemies be _damped_.”

_THE FARRAGO._

N. VIII.

Hear him but reason in divinity, And, all admiring, with an inward wish You would desire that he were made a Prelate.

Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, You'd say it had been all his study: List his discourse of war, and you shall hear A fearful battle, rendered you in music: Turn him to any cause of policy, The gordian knot of it he will unloose Familiar as his garter; when he speaks, The air, a chartered libertine, is still; And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences.

SHAKESPEARE.