And said, "I cannot make them better!" And much he loathed the patriot's snort,

And much he scorned the placeman's snuffle, And cut the fiercest quarrels short,

With "Patience, gentlemen, and shuffle."

For full ten years his pointer, Speed,

Had couched beneath her master's table;
For twice ten years his old white steed
Had fattened in his master's stable-
Old Quince averred, upon his troth,

They were the ugliest beasts in Devon;
And none knew why he fed them both,

With his own hands, six days in seven.

Whene'er they heard his ring or knock,
Quicker than thought, the village slatterns
Flung down the novel, smoothed the frock,
And took up Mrs. Glasse, and patterns;
Adine was studying baker's bills;

Louisa looked the queen of knitters;
Jane happened to be hemming frills;
And Bell, by chance, was making fritters.

But all was vain; and while decay

Came like a tranquil moonlight o'er him,
And found him gouty still, and gay,
With no fair nurse to bless or bore him;
His rugged smile, and easy chair,

His dread of matrimonial lectures, His wig, his stick, his powdered hair, Were themes for very strange conjectures.

Some sages thought the stars above

Had crazed him with excess of knowledge; Some heard he had been crossed in love, Before he came away from collegeSome darkly hinted that his Grace

Did nothing, great or small, without him; Some whispered, with a solemn face,

That there was something odd about him!

I found him at threescore and ten,
A single man, but bent quite double;
Sickness was coming on him then,

To take him from a world of trouble-
He prosed of slipping down the hill,
Discovered he grew older daily;
One frosty day he made his will-
The next he sent for Dr. Bailey!

And so he lived-and so he died:-
When last I sat beside his pillow,
He shook my hand, and “Ah!” he cried,
Penelope must wear the willow.

Tell her I hugged her rosy chain

While life was flickering in the socket; And say, that when I call again,

I'll bring a license in my pocket.

"I've left my house and grounds to Fag-
(I hope his master's shoes will suit him);
And I've bequeathed to you my nag,

To feed him for my sake-or shoot him.
The Vicar's wife will take old Fox-
She'll find him an uncommon mouser;
And let her husband have my box,
My Bible, and my Assmanshauser.

"Whether I ought to die or not

My doctors cannot quite determine;
It's only clear that I shall rot,

And be, like Priam, food for vermin.
My debts are paid;-but Nature's debt
Almost escaped my recollection!
Tom! we shall meet again; and yet
I cannot leave you my direction!"

III.—THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM.

YEARS, years ago, ere yet my dreams
Had been of being wise or witty;
Ere I had done with writing themes,

Or yawn'd o'er this infernal Chitty;
Years, years ago, while all my joys
Were in my fowling-piece and filly;
VOL. II.-10

In short, while I was yet a boy,

I fell in love with Laura Lilly.

I saw her at the County Ball:

There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle Gave signal sweet in that old hall,

Of hands across and down the middle, Hers was the subtlest spell by far

Of all that sets young hearts romancing: She was our queen, our rose, our star;

And then she danced-oh, heaven, her dancing!

Dark was her hair, her hand was white;
Her voice was exquisitely tender;

Her eyes were full of liquid light;
I never saw a waist so slender;

Her every look, her every smile,

Shot right and left a score of arrows;

I thought 'twas Venus from her isle,
And wondered where she'd left her sparrows.

She talked of politics or prayers—

Of Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's sonnets, Of danglers or of dancing bears,

Of battles, or the last new bonnets;
By candle-light, at twelve o'clock,
To me it mattered not a tittle,

If those bright lips had quoted Locke,

I might have thought they murmured Little.

Through sunny May, through sultry June,
I loved her with a love eternal;

I spoke her praises to the moon,

I wrote them to the Sunday Journal.
My mother laughed; I soon found out
That ancient ladies have no feeling;
My father frown'd; but how should gout
See any happiness in kneeling?

She was the daughter of a dean,
Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic;
She had one brother, just thirteen,
Whose colour was extremely hectic;
Her grandmother, for many a year,
Had fed the parish with her bounty;
Her second cousin was a peer,

And lord-lieutenant of the county.

But titles and the three per cents,
And mortgages, and great relations,
And India bonds, and tithes and rents,

Oh! what are they to love's sensations? Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks, Such wealth, such honours, Cupid chooses; He cares as little for the stocks,

As Baron Rothschild for the muses.

She sketched; the vale, the wood, the beach, Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading;