He wrote, too, in a quiet way,

Small treatises, and smaller verses,

And sage remarks on chalk and clay,
And hints to noble Lords-and nurses;
True histories of last year's ghost,

Lines to a ringlet, or a turban,
And trifles for the Morning Post,
And nothings for Sylvanus Urban.

He did not think all mischief fair,
Although he had a knack of joking;
He did not make himself a bear,
Although he had a taste for smoking;
And when religious sects ran mad,
He held, in spite of all his learning,
That if a man's belief is bad,

It will not be improved by burning.

And he was kind, and loved to sit
In the low hut or garnished cottage,

And praise the farmer's homely wit,

And share the widow's homelier pottage:

At his approach complaint grew mild;

And when his hand unbarred the shutter, The clammy lips of fever smiled

The welcome which they could not utter.

He always had a tale for me

Of Julius Cæsar, or of Venus;

From him I learnt the rule of three,
Cat's cradle, leap-frog, and Quæ genus:

I used to singe his powdered wig,

To steal the staff he put such trust in, And make the puppy dance a jig,

When he began to quote Augustine.

Alack the change! in vain I look

For haunts in which my boyhood trifled, —

The level lawn, the trickling brook,

The trees I climbed, the beds I rifled;

The church is larger than before;
You reach it by a carriage entry;
It holds three hundred people more,
And pews are fitted up for gentry.

Sit in the Vicar's seat: you'll hear
The doctrine of a gentle Johnian,
Whose hand is white, whose tone is clear,
Whose phrase is very Ciceronian.

Where is the old man laid?-look down

And construe on the slab before you, "Hic jacet GVLIEelmvs Brown,

Vir nulla non donandus lauru."

EVERY-DAY CHARACTERS

II

QUINCE

Fallentis semita vitæ. - HOR.

NEAR a small village in the West,
Where many very worthy people
Eat, drink, play whist, and do their best
To guard from evil Church and steeple,
There stood-alas! it stands no more!-

A tenement of brick and plaster,

Of which, for forty years and four,

My good friend Quince was lord and master.

Welcome was he in hut and hall

To maids and matrons, peers and peasants;

He won the sympathies of all

By making puns, and making presents. Though all the parish were at strife,

He kept his counsel, and his carriage,

He laughed, and loved a quiet life,

And shrank from Chancery suits—and mar

riage.

Sound was his claret—and his head;

Warm was his double ale—and feelings;
His partners at the whist club said
That he was faultless in his dealings:
He went to church but once a week;
Yet Dr. Poundtext always found him
An upright man, who studied Greek,
And liked to see his friends around him.

Asylums, hospitals and schools,

He used to swear, were made to cozen; All who subscribed to them were fools,—

And he subscribed to half-a-dozen :

It was his doctrine, that the

poor

Were always able, never willing;

And so the beggar at his door

Had first abuse, and then—a shilling.