How gayly I passed the long days,
In a round of continu'd delights!
Park, visits, assemblies, and plays,
And a dance to enliven the nights.

"How simple was I to believe
Delusive poetical dreams!

Or the flattering landscapes they give,
Of meadows and murmuring streams.
Bleak mountains, and cold starving rocks,
Are the wretched result of my pains;
The swains greater brutes than their flocks,
And the nymphs as polite as the swains.

"What tho' I have got my dear Phil;
I see him all night and all day;
I find I must not have my will,
And I've cursedly sworn to obey!
Fond damsel, thy pow'r is lost,
As now I experience too late ;
Whatever a lover may boast,

A husband is what one may hate!

"And thou, my old woman, so dear, My all that is left of relief, Whatever I suffer, forbear

Forbear to dissuade me from grief; 'Tis in vain, as you say, to repine

At ills which cannot be redress'd;
But, in sorrows so poignant as mine,
To be patient, alas! is a jest.

"If, farther to soothe my distress,
Your tender compassion is led,
Come hither and help to undress,
And decently put me to bed.

The last humble solace I wait,

Wou'd Heav'n but indulge me the boon, May some dream, less unkind than my fate, In a vision transport me to town.

"Clarissa, meantime, weds a beau,
Who decks her in golden array;
She's the finest at ev'ry fine show,
And flaunts it at Park and at Play:
Whilst I am here left in the lurch,

Forgot, and secluded from view;
Unless when some bumkin at church
Stares wistfully over the pew."

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU.

There, melancholy, pensive, and alone,

She meditates on the forsaken town:

On her rais'd arm reclin'd her drooping head,
She sigh'd, and thus in plaintive accents said:

66

Ah, what avails it to be young and fair:

To move with negligence, to dress with care? What worth have all the charms our pride can boast,

If all in envious solitude are lost?

Where none admire, 'tis useless to excell;

Where none are beaux, 'tis vain to be a belle;

Beauty, like wit, to judges should be shewn ;
Both most are valued, where they best are known.
With every grace of nature or of art,

We cannot break one stubborn country heart;
The brutes, insensible, our power defy:
To love, exceeds a 'squire's capacity.

The town, the court, is Beauty's proper sphere;
That is our Heaven, and we are angels there:
In that gay circle thousand Cupids rove,
The court of Britain is the court of Love.
How has my conscious heart with triumph glow'd,
How have my sparkling eyes their transport shew'd,
At each distinguish'd birth-night ball, to see
The homage, due to Empire, paid to me!
When every eye was fix'd on me alone,

And dreaded mine more than the Monarch's frown;

When rival statesmen for my favour strove,
Less jealous in their power than in their love.
Chang'd is the scene; and all my glories die,
Like flowers transplanted to a colder sky:
Lost is the dear delight of giving pain,
The tyrant joy of hearing slaves complain.
In stupid indolence my life is spent,
Supinely calm, and dully innocent:
Unblest I wear my useless time away;

Sleep (wretched maid!) all night, and dream all day;

Go at set hours to dinner, and to prayer;
For dullness ever must be regular.

Now with mamma at tedious whist I play;
Now without scandal drink insipid tea;
Or in the garden breathe the country air,
Secure from meeting any tempter there;
From books to work, from work to books, I rove,
And am (alas!) at leisure to improve!—

Is this the life a beauty ought to lead?
Were eyes so radiant only made to read?
These fingers, at whose touch e'en age would glow,
Are these of use to nothing but to sew?
Sure erring Nature never could design

To form a housewife in a mould like mine?
O Venus, queen and guardian of the fair,
Attend propitious to thy votary's prayer:
Let me revisit the dear town again:

Let me be seen!—could I that wish obtain,
All other wishes my own power would gain."
GEORGE, LORD LYTTELTON.

PICCADILLY.

ICCADILLY! shops, palaces, bustle,

and breeze,

The whirring of wheels, and the mur-
mur of trees;

By night or by day, whether noisy or stilly,
Whatever my mood is, I love Piccadilly!

Wet nights, when the gas on the pavement is streaming,

And young Love is watching, and old Love is dreaming,

And Beauty is whirling to conquest, where shrilly Cremona makes nimble thy toes, Piccadilly!

Bright days, when a stroll is my afternoon wont, And I meet all the people I do know, or don't :Here is jolly old Brown, and his fair daughter Lillie

No wonder some pilgrims affect Piccadilly!

See yonder pair riding, how fondly they saunter,
She smiles on her poet, whose heart's in a canter!
Some envy
her spouse, and some covet her filly,
He envies them both,-he's an ass, Piccadilly!

Were I such a bride, with a slave at my feet,
I would choose me a house in my favourite street;
Yes or no-I would carry my point, willy-nilly:
If "no," pick a quarrel; if "yes,"-Piccadilly!
From Primrose balcony, long ages ago,

"Old Q. sat at gaze,-who now passes below? A frolicksome statesman, the Man of the Day; A laughing philosopher, gallant and gay; Never darling of fortune more manfully trod, Full of years, full of fame, and the world at his nod: Can the thought reach his heart, and then leave it more chilly

"Old P. or old Q.,-I must quit Piccadilly ?"

Life is chequer'd; a patchwork of smiles and of frowns ;

We value its ups, let us muse on its downs; There's a side that is bright, it will then turn us

t'other;

One turn, if a good one, deserves yet another. These downs are delightful, these ups are not hilly,Let us turn one more turn ere we quit Piccadilly. FREDERICK LOCKER.

ST. JAMES'S STREET.

T. JAMES'S STREET, of classic fame,
The finest people throng it.

St. James's Street? I know the name,
I think I've pass'd along it!