The first impression in her infant breast
Will be the deepest, and should be the best.
Let not austerity breed servile fear;
No wanton should offend her virgin ear.
Secure from foolish pride's affected state,
And specious flattery's more pernicious bait;
Habitual innocence adorns her thoughts;
But your neglect must answer for her faults.
Immodest words admit of no defence,

For want of decency is want of sense,' etc.

Here we have it! Ben could bottle up thunder and lightning,' but he made mistakes as to the paternity of his quotations.

How comes it that Dr. Sparks makes no marginal correction of this in quoting Franklin's auto-biography in the first volume of his life of that eminent runaway printer? Or does the Professor, too, think with eight out of every ten readers in these United States, that Pope really is the author of that couplet of near two centuries? I shouldn't wonder; and I trust you will mark this article in the copy you send to his address.

To show how easy it is to be mistaken, and that, with many probabilities in one's favor, some authorities will not do to bet on, I subjoin the following

Harpings on One

String.

BY ALEXANDER POPE, ESQUIRE,

'WHо, past all pleasure, damn the joys of sense,
With reverend dulness and grave impotence.'

'For like a prince, he bore the vast expense
Of lavish pomp and proud magnificence.'
'Art shall be theirs to varnish an offence,
And fortify the crime with confidence.'
'Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense,
Weigh thy opinion against PROVIDENCE.'
'It must be so- why else have I the sense
Of more than monkeys' charms and excellence?'
'That sees immediate good by present sense;
Reason, the future and the consequence.'

'Forced into virtue thus by self-defence,
Even kings learned justice and benevolence.'

January and May.

'More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence
That such are happier, shocks all common-sense.'
'Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense
Lie in three words - health, peace, and competence.'
'Grasp the whole world of reason, life, and sense,
In one close system of benevolence.'

'A standing sermon at each year's expense,
That ever coxcomb reached magnificence.'

'Something more is needful than expense,
And something previous e'en to taste- 't is sense.'
'Tis use alone that sanctifies the expense,
And splendor borrows all her rays from sense.'

Essay on Man.

Epistle to Richard Boyle.

'So when a statesman wants a day's defense,
Or envy holds a whole week's war with sense.'

Prologue to the Satires.

"'T was 'Sir, your law' and 'Sir, your eloquence'
'Yours, CowPER's manner'-' and yours, TALBOT's sense."

'Or bid the new be English, ages hence
(For use will father what's begot by sense.')

Imitations of Horace.

'The gracious dew of pulpit eloquence,
And all the well-whipped cream of courtly sense.'

Then I might sing without the least offence,
And all I sung should be the nation's sense.'

Mine, as a foe professed to false pretence,
Who think a coxcomb's honor like his sense.'

O sacred weapon! left by Truth's defence,
Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence.'

'Or if to wit a coxcomb make pretence,

Epilogue to the Satires.

Guard the sure barrier between that and sense.'

'Some demon stole my pen (forgive th' offence !) And once betrayed me into common-sense.'

'Now at his head the dext'rous task commence,
And, instant, fancy feels the imputed sense.'

'But oh! with one, immortal one, dispense,
The source of NEWTON'S light, of BACON's sense.'

'See Physic beg the Stagyrite's defence!
See Metaphysic call for aid on sense!'

'Chromatic tortures soon shall drive them hence, Break all their nerves, and fritter all their sense.'

'But soon, ah! soon rebellion will commence,
If music meanly borrows aid from sense.'

To ask, to guess, to know as they commence,
As fancy opens the quick springs of sense.'

But of the two less dangerous is the offence
To tire our patience than mislead our sense.'

In search of wit these lose their common-sense,
And then turn critics in their own defence.'

'Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, And fills up all the mighty void of sense.'

'Some by old words to fame have made pretence, Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense.'

'At every trifle scorn to take offence,

That always shows great pride or little sense.'

'Be silent always when you doubt your sense,
And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence.'

Be niggards of advice on no pretence:
For the worst of avarice is that of sense.'

'Strain at the last dull droppings of their sense,
And rhyme with all the rage of impotence ! '

HORACE [GREELEY] still charms with graceful negligence,
And without method talks us into sense.'

Dunciad.

LITERARY

NOTICES.

PRUE AND I. By GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. In one volume: pp. 821. New-York. DIX, EDWARDS AND COMPANY, Broadway.

AN unprofessional (say, if you please, an amateur) reviewer, who 'conveyed' from our table' Prue and I,' and greatly enjoyed the perusal of that which he had not before seen, sends us the subjoined notes and comments upon the same: 'We have read this book aloud to our PRUE with unmixed delight, pausing at intervals to indulge in 'sweet reveries, which any book must be a very entertaining one to produce.' Not till we had finished the last chapter, about our Cousin the Curate, did we think that our readers might like to know our opinion of it. This idea then occurring to us for the first time, we turned to our PRUE and asked her what she thought of it. 'It is a very pleasant book,' she said, 'very beautifully and naturally written, but 'But, what?' said we: 'But I'm afraid it encourages young men to have AURELIAS.' We are afraid that we shall get no further assistance from our PRUE in giving 'our opinion' of Mr. CURTIS's last and best book. But for this unfortunate AURELIA our readers would have had from the nice discrimination of our better half a valuable criticism of this LAMB-like book. Mr. CURTIS will excuse us, we are sure, if we venture a word of advice in this connection, which our larger experience as a BENEDICK entitles us to offer him. It is this: 'Not to say any thing to the present Mrs. PRUE about AURELIAS.' Wives are prone to misunderstand such platonic attachments, and of all the PRUES we have known, not one was quite so amiable as this one of Mr. CURTIS. Believing with HUME, that 'criticism is worthless unless supported by copious quotation,' we append some of the many passages along the margin of which we passed our approving pencil as we read; first giving a list of the Dramatis Persona, Place aux dames: PRUE, the quiet, loving wife; AURELIA, the perfect ideal of the Ego; 'I,' the dreamy, philosophical, LAMB-like book-keeper, husband of PRUE and platonic admirer of AURELIA; TITEOTTOM, the taciturn, but sentimental and kind-hearted deputy book-keeper, possessor of a wonderful pair of spectacles; and Mr. BOWNE, the employer of the book-keeper and deputy; who, beside being a prosperous merchant, is the possessor of large estates, with palatial 'improvements,' in Spain. But let the old book-keeper introduce himself:

'AN old book-keeper, who wears a white cravat and black trowsers in the morning, who rarely goes to the opera, and never dines out, is clearly a person of no fashion and

of no superior sources of information. His only journey is from his house to his office; his only satisfaction is in doing his duty; his only happiness is in his PRUE and his children.

'What romance can such a life have? What stories can such a man tell?

'Yet I think, sometimes, when I look up from the parquet at the opera and see AURELIA Smiling in the boxes, and holding her court of love, and youth, and beauty, that the historians have not told of a fairer queen, nor the travellers seen devouter homage.

So, as the circle of my life revolves, I console myself with believing what I cannot help believing, that a man need not be a vagabond to enjoy the sweetest charm of travel, but that all countries and all times repeat themselves in his experience. This is an old philosophy, I am told, and much favored by those who have travelled; and I cannot but be glad that my faith has such a fine name and such competent witnesses. I am assured, however, upon the other hand, that such a faith is only imagination. But if that be true, imagination is as good as many voyages, and how much cheaper! a consideration which an old book-keeper can never afford to forget. know that this may be only a desire of that compassionate imagination designed to comfort me who shall never take but one other journey than my daily beat. Yet there have been wise men who taught that all scenes are but pictures on the mind; and if I can see them as I walk the street to my office, or sit at the office-window looking into the court, or take a little trip down the bay, or up the river, why are not my pictures as pleasant and as profitable as those which men travel for years at great cost of time, and trouble, and money, to behold?

"For my part, I do not believe that any man can see softer skies than I see in PRUE'S eyes; nor hear sweeter music than I hear in PRUE's voice; nor find a more heavenlighted temper than I know PRUE's mind to be. And when I wish to please myself with a lovely image of peace and contentment, I do not think of the plain of Sharon, nor the Valley of Enna, nor of Arcadia, nor of CLAUDE's pictures; but feeling that the fairest fortune of my life is the right to be named with her, I whisper gently to myself with a smile, for it seems as if my very heart smiled within me when I think of her: 'PRUE and I.''

Our book-keeper follows a gentleman in white waist-coat and white kids to the mansion where he is invited to dine. AURELIA has entered already. The door is opened by white-gloved servants. There is a brief glimpse of magnificence for the dull eyes of the loiterers outside; then the door closes.' 'You approach with hat in hand and the thumb of your left hand in your waist-coat pocket. You are polished and cool, and have an irreproachable repose of manner. There are no improper wrinkles in your cravat; your shirt-bosom does not bulge; the trowsers are accurate about your admirable boot. But you look very stiff and brittle. You are a little bullied by your unexceptionable shirt-collar, which interdicts perfect freedom of movement in your head. You are elegant undoubtedly, but it seems as if you might break and fall to pieces like a porcelain vase if you were roughly shaken. Now here I have the advantage of you. My fancy quietly surveying the scene, is subject to none of these embarrassments; my fancy will not utter common-places; that will not say to the superb lady who stands with her flowers, incarnate May: 'What a beautiful day, Miss AURELIA;' that will not feel constrained to say something when it has nothing to say; nor will it be obliged to smother all the pleasant things that occur, because they would be too flattering to express. My fancy perpetually murmurs in AURELIA's ear, 'Those flowers would not be fair in your hand if you yourself were not fairer. That diamond necklace would be gaudy if your eyes were not brighter. That queenly movement would be awkward if your soul were not queenlier.' 'What insufferable stuff; you are talking about the weather, and the opera, and ALBONI's delicious voice, and Newport, and Saratoga! They are all very pleasant subjects, but do you suppose IXION talked Thessalian politics when he was admitted to dine with JUNO? Is it any better, now that you are seated at the table? Your companion eats little because she wishes little. You eat little because you think it elegant to do so. It is a shabby, second-hand ele

gance, like your brittle behavior. It is just as foolish for you to play with the meats, when you ought to satisfy your healthy appetite generously, as it is for you in the drawing-room to affect that cool indifference when you have real and noble interests. Now, for you are a man of sense, you are conscious that those wonderful eyes of AURELIA see straight through all this net-work of elegant manners in which you have entangled yourself, and that consciousness is uncomfortable to you. It is another trick in the game for me, because those eyes do not pry into my fancy. How can they, since AURELIA does not know of my existence? Unless, indeed, she should remember the first time I saw her. It was only last year, in May. I had dined somewhat hastily in consideration of the fine day, and of my confidence that many would be wending dinnerward that afternoon. I saw my PRUE comfortably engaged in seating the trowsers of ADONIRAM, our eldest boy, an economical care to which my darling PRUE is not unequal, even in these days and in this town; and then hurried toward the avenue. It is never much thronged at that hour. The moment is sacred to dinner. As I paused at the corner of Twelfthstreet, by the church, you remember, I saw an apple-woman, from whose stores I determined to finish my dessert, which had been imperfect at home. But mindful of meritorious and economical PRUE, I was not the man to pay exorbitant prices for apples, and while still haggling with the wrinkled EVE who had tempted me, I became suddenly aware of a carriage approaching, and, indeed already, close by. I raised my eyes, still munching an apple which I held in one hand, while the other grasped my walking-stick, (true to my instincts of dinner-guest, as young women to a passing wedding, or old ones to a funeral,) and beheld AURELIA!' Fumbling for his spectacles, that he might enjoy this boon more fully, he thoughtlessly advanced upon the apple-stand, when in a moment old woman, apple-stand, apples, baskets, and himself fell into the street in 'promiscuous confusion.' This fortunate accident gains him another look from the beautiful AURELIA out of the back window of her carriage, and he feels sure that she entered the house of her host with beaming eyes and full of the sparkling story of his mishap. He was her theme for ten mortal minutes. She his bard, his blithe historian; she the HOMER of his luckless Trojan fall, setting it to music in telling it. 'Think what it is to have inspired URANIA.' From this time forward we never forgot AURELIA, and although we only get occasional glimpses of her, we are almost as much in love with her at the end of the book as we are with the incomparable PRUE. You will smile at these 'ridiculous' fancies of an old book-keeper 'tenderly rather than scornfully, if you remember that they show how closely linked we human creatures are, without knowing it, and that more hearts than we dreamed of enjoy our happiness and share our sorrows.' We have all tried to fancy how beautiful were our mothers when young, but our grand-mothers seem to us to have been always old. Yet 'your grand-mother was the AURELIA of half a century ago, although you cannot fancy her young. You can believe MARY Queen of Scots, or NELL GWYN, or CLEOPATRA, to have been young and blooming, although they belong to old and dead centuries, but not your grand-mother. Think of those who shall believe the same of you—you who are to-day the very flower of youth.' 'Might I plead with you, AURELIA —I who would be too happy to receive one of those graciously beaming bows that I see you bestow upon young men in passing-I would ask you to bear that thought with you always, not to sadden your sunny smile, but to give it a more subtle grace. Wear in your summer garland this little leaf of rue It will not be the skull at the feast, it will rather be the tender thoughtfulness in