Whom e'en with light'nings gleam oblique
The Thunderer will not dare to strike;
Who fears not all the winds that rave
Along the Adriatic wave;

And sees the stormy firmament,

With cheek unblench'd, and heart unbent;
Who safely lifted up on high,
Sees earth, as if beneath him, lie;
And meets the fate he cannot shun,

With joy, as if his task was done.
Let Kings to battle hasten far,

Who drive the Daian host to war-
Who rule the realms which wide surround
The sea which strews with gems the ground-
The sea along whose redd'ning breast
Float gales from Araby the blest ;
Or who the Armenian confines sway
Where Caspian hills access display,
Or who the frozen waters tread
Where Danube's icy oceans spread;
Or where the Seres till the ground,
The Seres by their fleece renown'd,
Let these for kingdoms thousands kill,
'Tis VIRTUE makes the monarch still.
A kingdom can her power bestow,
Which asks not falchion, steed, or bow,
Which asks not Parthian spear, or lance,
Or engines, which like towers, advance :
Which solely asks, and but requires
A mind exempt from low desires-
Or fear, and He who thus is blest,
May find this kingdom in his breast-
Let others seek the glittering court
Where high ambition's votaries sport;
Be mine the ease and downy rest,
Which soothe the quiet country's guest;
The humble roof, the lowly shed,
Where trees around their foliage spread,
Where no Patrician's scornful eye
May break upon my privacy.

So when my days at length are past,
Ungloomed and cloudless to the last,
I may, beneath my darling shades,
Expire, as softly day-light fades ;
My only monuments the trees-
My onis dirge the mountain breeze-
Such be my lot. For death will fall
On him most sharp, who-known to all-
Is found, when comes the mortal blow,
To feel-he bas HIMSELF to know.

CERVANTES.

Next to the desire of instruction and entertainment, is that of an acquaintance with those to whom we are indebted for such instruction and entertainment; and every incident tending to throw light upon the pursuits, habits, or ancestry of great or remarkable men, is dwelt upon with pleasure and treasured up with care: this is so generally felt and acknowledged, that a new publication seldom makes its appearance without a life, or at least some account of the author: indeed there is at this time publishing in the metropolis, a little work which contains portraits and biography of living characters who are any way eminent for talent or virtue. I have been led into these reflections on observing our generally imperfect knowledge of the above author most of the accounts which I have seen in English, give a wrong year for the date of his birth, and all of them, a wrong place of birth; and in a metropolitan periodical now publishing, which contains an alphabetical arrangement of eminent persons who have been concerned in or connected with trade, the words " origin unknown" are placed opposite the name of Cervan

tes.

It is now some years since the Spanish academy, under the direction of their Sovereign the late King, published a magnificent edition of Don Quixote, at the head of which was the life of the author, written by a distinguished acad mician, from materials which were the result of a diligent and scrupulous research; and, therefore to be depended upon. This account states that Cervantes was a gentleman by birth, the son of Rodrigo de Cervantes, and Leonora de Cortinas, and

The Portfolio.

was born at +Alcala de Henare's in New Castille, on the 9th October, 1547. In other respects our accounts agree with the life written by the Spanish academician; but his account of the slavery of Cervantes, and his attempts to escape therefrom, may perhaps not be unacceptable-it runs tbus:—

"As Cervantes was returning from Naples to Spain in a galley belonging to Philip 2d, he was taken by Arnot Mami, a most redoubtable Corsair, and carried as a slave to Algiers. But nothing could damp the courage of Cervantes; and though he was pretty sure of dying a cruel death if he made the least attempt to regain his liberty; he notwithstanding laid a plan to escape with fourteen other Spanish captives. It was agreed that one of them should be ransomed, who was to return home and come back with a bark and carry off the others in the night time. The execution of this project was not very easy in the first place it was necessary to raise a sufficient sum to redeem one of them; then to escape from their different masters and remain together withont discovery until the time when the bark should come for them.

"So many difficulties appeared insurmountable; but the love of liberty made every thing easy. A Navarese captive who was employed to cultivate a large garden which was situated on the sea-shore, undertook to dig a cavern in a retired part of the garden, capable of containing the fifteen Spaniards. It took him two years to perform this work in the mean time they had, by begging and working, got together a sum sufficient for the ransom of a majorcan of the name of Viana, on whom they could depend, and who was perfectly well acquainted with all the Barbary coast. The money being ready and the cavern complete, it took six months more to assemble them all together; which being done, Viana purchased his freedom, and left them, after having sworn to return in a short time.

"Cervantes was the soul of the enterprise: he went in the night time to procure provisions for his companions, and when day began to appear he returned to the cavern with the day's allowance. The gardener, who was not obliged to conceal himself, kept a constant look out for the bark which was to release them.

"Viana kept his word. On his arrival at Majorca he waited on the viceroy, whom he informed of the business; and requested assistance in his enterprise. The viceroy gave him a brigantine; and Viana, full of hope, hastened to the delivery of his brethren.

"He arrived on the coast of Algiers on the 23d September in the same year, 1577, a month after his departure from thence. Viana had taken particular notice of the spot, and knew it again though it was night: he steered his little vessel towards the garden where he was expected with so much impatience. The gardener who was on the watch perceived him, and ran and gave notice to the thirteen Spaniards. At this happy news all their hardships were forgotten, and they embraced each other with tears of joy, eagerly watching the bark of their liberator; but alas! as the prow was just close to land, several Moors who were passing by, seeing the christians, gave the alarm; and Viana in terror. put bis vessel about and regaining the open sea soon disappeared; and the unhappy captives thus replunged into slavery retired to their cavern to weep.

Cervantes encouraged them: he hoped, and he instilled the same hope into his companions, that Viana would return; but no Viana appeared. Grief and the dampness of their confined and unhealthy dwelling brought on a cruel sickness amongst them, and Cervantes not being any longer able alone to provide for and attend to them, called in the assistance of one of his companions, who was to relieve him of the task of procuring provisions. But the man he chose proved false to them; for he went and informed the Dey of the whole affair, turned musulman, and conducted a guard of soldiers to the cavern, who seized and chained the thirteen Spaniards.

"Being taken before the Dey he promised them their lives if they would declare who was the author of the enterprise. It was I, said Cervantes, spare my brethren and let me die. The Dey admired his intrepidity and restored him to his master, Arnot Mami. The unfortunate gardener who dug the cavern was hung by one leg until he was suffocated with his own blood.

+ No less than four places, viz. Madrid, Seville, Lucena, and Alcala, had laid claim to this honour.

"Cervantes made four other attempts to regain his liberty; but was at length ransomed by his mother, Leonora de Cortinas with the assistance of the Fathers of the Trinity this was on the 19th September, 1580, after a slavery of five years."

Cervantes was of the same decisive character to the last. Four days before his death he asked for his romance of Persiles which he had just finished, and with a feeble hand wrote the dedication which he addressed to the Count of Lemos, who had just arrived from Italy. It is as follows:

"To Don Pedro Fernandez de Castro, Count de Lemos, &c. "We have an old Spanish romance which runs but too true: that which begins with the words

"Though death urge strongly to depart,

"I write to you before I start, &c. "Such is precisely my case at present; they gave me extreme unction yesterday; I am dying, and am very sorry I am not able to tell you how much pleasure your arrival in Spain gives me. The joy I experience ought to save my life; but the will of God be done! Your excellency will at least know that my gratitude lasted as long as my life. I regret much the not being able to finish certain works which I intended for you, as, the Garden Weeks, the Great Bernard, and the last books of Galatea; for which I know you have a kindness; but that would require a miracle of the Almighty, and I only ask him to preserve your excellency. Michael de Cervantes."

Madrid, this 19th April, 1616. He died the 23d of the same month aged 68 years. and 6 months.

Manchester, 6th October, 1823.

T. V.

• This Count of Lemos had been a sort of patron to Cervantes, but suffered him to live in straitened circumstances.-Our Shakespeare was more fortunate in England.

EXTEMPORANEOUS ADDRESS TO DR. JOHNSON'S BUST.

"Thou bit of frowning plaster!
Thou head of the proud master
Of style the most sententious,
Of wit the most contentious,-
Thou dost not often look
Down here on crabbed book;
But rather smel'st the vapour
Of some light morning paper,-
Or hear'st the Fleet-street dandy
Call for a glass of brandy,
(Diluted oft with water,)—
Or look'st upon the slaughter
Of beef, or lamb, or mutton,
By some blown city glutton.
Though I've no great affection
For this our host's selection,
And wish the head were placed bere
Of our divinest Shakspeare,
Or Rabelais, or Montaigne,
To smile on port or champaigne,
(For thou art looking solidly),
I'd willingly remove
To Hamstead's leafy grove
This bust of learned gravity,
To frown me into suavity,
As skulls at Memphian banquet
Heighten the joy. I'd flank it:
With Socrates and Plato,
With Seneca and Cato.
But where my heart reposes
In bowers of twining roses,
In those endearing hours
Of nightingales aud flowers,
When Mrs. H. for me
Prepares nectareous tea;
And, when there are around us
Those charming girls, who found us
In our sweet solitude,
And spite of voices rude,
And the world's envy, came
To watch o'er genius' flame;
O then, my friends, to lull us
Into sweet thoughts, Catullus,
Anacreon, Boccace,

And each that loves a lass,
Shall smile upon our blisses
Of quips, and cranks, and kisses ;-
And out of these we'll cater
Thoughts that shall make us greater
Than be we now sit under,-
A starveling age's wonder."

THE STAFFORDSHIRE COLLIERS.

Many of my readers must recollect crossing, in the route from London to Holyhead, a miserable tract of country commencing a few miles beyond Birmingham and continuing to Wolverhamptou. If the volumes of sulphurous vapour which I shall not compliment with the name of smoke, permitted them at intervals to "view the dismal situation waste and wild," they would observe the surface of the desert around them scarred and broken, as if it had just reposed from the heavings of an earthquake. Now and then they would shudder as they passed the mouth of a deserted mine left without any guard but the wariness of the passenger. Sometimes they would see a feeble and lambent flame, (called by the miners the wild fire) issue from chaps in the parched earth. It is self-kindled by a process familiar to the chemist, and feeds on gas evolved by the refuse of the coal, that has been left in immense caverns hollowed by the labours of ages, over which the carriage of the unconscious traveller rolls for many miles. They would be struck also with the sight of houses from which the treacherous foundations have gradually shrunk, leaving them in such a state of obliquity with the horizon, as if they stood only to evince the contempt of themselves and their inhabitants for the laws of gravitation.

If the traveller, in addition to these attacks on his organs of smell and of vision, has nerve to inspect more closely the tremendous operations which are going on around him as far as the eye can reach, he must learn to endure the grating of harsh wheels, the roaring of the enormous bellows which, set in motion by the power of steam, urge the fires of the smelting furnace till they glow with almost the white brilliance of the noon-day sun. He must learn to care little for the sparks which fly from the half-molten iron, under the action of the forge in torrents of burning rain, while the earth literally trembles beneath the strokes of a mightier hammer than Thor himself ever wielded against the giants.

But my present business is with the human part of the spectacle. The miners, or, as they call themselves, the colliers, are a curious race of men, and the study of their natural history would be replete with information and entertainment. Nothing can be more uncouth than their appearance. Their figures are tall and robust in no ordinary degree, but their faces, when, by any accident, the coating of black dirt in which they are cased is partially rubbed off, show ghastly pale, and even at an early age they are ploughed in the deepest furrows. Their working dress consists of a tunic, or short frock, and trowsers of coarse flannel. Their holiday clothes are chiefly of cotton velvet, or velveteen as I believe the drapers call it, decorated with a profusion of shining metal buttons; but they seem principally to pique themselves on their garters, which are made of worsted, and very gay in colour: these they tie on, so that a great part, as if by accident, appears below the knee. Their labour is intense. They stand, sit, or crouch for hours, often in the most irksome posture, undermining rocks of coal with a pickaxe. Not unfrequently they are crushed beneath the weight of the superincumbent mass, or suffocated by a

deleterious exhalation, which they call by the expressive name of the choke damp*, and sometimes they are scorched by the explosion of the hydrogen which is generated in the depths of the mine-a disaster from which that beautiful invention of Sir Humphrey Davy, the safety-lamp does not always preserve them. This evil is not however attributable to any imperfection in the men, who are with difficulty prevailed upon to observe the plainest and most simple directions even in

the instrument, but to the astonishing recklessness of

matters of life and death.

previous acquaintance, but seemed drawn together by community of sentiment and pursuit. They were soon engaged in an occupation interesting alike to all ranks of society; namely, an inquiry into the characters of their common friends. As their conversation illustrates in some degree the manners of this people, I will give a short specimen of it in the original; together with a

common rule for the transmission of the surname. What rule they follow I cannot say, but it often happens that a son has a surname very different from that of his father: sometimes a man will have two sets of names, as John Smith and Thomas Jones, and that without any intention of concealment-but, except on high occasions, as a marriage or a christening, they rarely use any appellative except the cognomen or nick-glossary for the benefit of the mere English reader. name. The Latin word is the best, because the EngJish implies something inconsistent with the staid and regular usage of the epithet by all persons connected with the subject of it, his wife, his children, and himself included.

I knew an apothecary in the collieries, who, as a matter of decorum, always entered the real names of his patients in his books; that is, when he could ascertain them. But they stood there only for ornament: for use be found it necessary to append the soubriquet, which he did with true medical formality, as for instance, "Thomas Williams, vulgo dict. Old Puff.” Serious inconvenience not unfrequently arises on occasions where it is necessary to ascertain the true name and reduce it to writing, not only from the utter ignorance displayed by the owner of all the mysteries of spelling, but from his incapacity to pronounce the word, so as to give the slightest idea of what its orthography ought to be. Clergymen have been known to send home a wedding party in despair, after a vain essay to gain from the vocal organs of the bride or bridegroom, or their friends, a sound by way of name which any known alphabet had the power of committing to paper. The habit of using the cognomen is so common, that the miners apply the custom to strangers with an unconsciousness of offence quite classic. If a traveller should be hailed by the epithet "nosey," he should recollect that Ovid endured the same treatment in the court of Augustus without dreaming of an affront, and he may even flatter himself that he bears some outward resemblance to the great poet.

Indeed, in all communications with persons of higher rank, the miners preserve a bold simplicity of manners far different, at least in my mind, from insolence. I recollect passing through the little town of Bilston at the time of the first abdication of Buonaparte, and being accosted by one of a group of colliers, who, with black faces and folded arms, were discussing the events of the day, with an interrogation, which, imitated in print, might stand thus, "Oy say, what dost thee think o' the paice, beoots?" which being rendered into our language is, "I say, what dost thou think of the peace, boots?" My boots were, I suppose, that part of my dress by which I was most conspicuously distinguished from the natives. This I understood as a friendly invitation to a conference on the state of affairs, and my feelings were no more hurt by the designation bestowed on me, than those of Hercules ever were by the epithet Claviger.

But I had made this race of people in some sort my study. I remember once mounting rather hastily the outside of a stage coach which was passing through the coal district, and setting myself down in the first place that offered itself, without taking time to reconnoitre. When I had opportunity for inspection, I found at my right an old man with a rope coiled round him like a belt, by which my practised eye at once recognised him for a canal boatman, carrying home his towing-line. On my left was a personage whose dress was not a lit

The mysterious

• Often I believe carbonic acid gas.

as the gentleman on the other side-a conductor of boats. They appeared not to have had much, if any,

Lady. Dun yo know Soiden-mouth Tummy? Gentleman. Ees: an' a 'neation good feller he is tew. Lady. A desput quoiett mon! But he loves a sup o' drink. Dun yo know his woif? Gentleman. Know her! Ay. Her's the very devil when her sperit's up.

Lady. Her is. Her uses that mon sheamful-her rags him every neets of her loif.

Gentleman. Her does. Oive known her come into the public, and call him all the neames her could lay her tongue tew afore all the company. Her oughts to stay tili her's got him i' the boat, and then her mit say what her'd a moind. But her taks aiter her feyther. Lady. Hew was her feyther? Gentleman. Whoy, singing Jemmy. Lady. Oi don't think as how Oi ever know'd singing Jemmy. Was he ode Soaker's brother?

Gentleman. Ees, he was. He lived a top o' Hell Bonk. He was the wickedest, swearinst mong as ever Oi know'd. I should think as how he was the wickedest mon i' the wold, and say he had the rheamatiz so bad!

Many anecdotes might be collected to show the great difficulty of discovering a person in the Collieries without being in possession of his nickname. The following I received from a respectable attorney. During his clerkship he was sent to serve some legal process on a man whose name and address were given to him with legal accuracy, He traversed the village to

which he had been directed from end to end without success; and after spending many hours in the search, was about to abandon it in despair, when a young woman, who had witnessed his labours, kindly undertook to make inquiries for him, and began to bail her friends for that purpose.

Oi say, Bullyed, does thee know a mon neamed Adam Green?

The Bull-head was shaken in sign of ignorance.
Loy-a-bed, dost thee?

Lie-a-bed's opportunities of making acquaintance had been rather limited, and she could not resolve the difficulty.

Stumpy, (a man with a wooden leg) Cowskin, Spindle-shanks, Cock-eye, Pig-tail, and Yellow-belly, were severally invoked, but in vain, and the querist fell into a brown study, in which she remained for some time. At length, however, her eyes suddenly brightened, and slapping one of her companions on the shoulder, she exclaimed, triumphantly, "Dash my wig! whoy he means my feyther!" and then turning to the gentleman, she added, "Yo should'n ax'd¶ for Ode Blackbird!" of

these children of nature may be seen wandering about Now and then, but not very frequently, groups tions as the Indians experience at New York or Philathe streets of Birmingham, with much the same sensadelphia. It was at Birmingham that the Roscio-mania, weeks indistinct rumours of Young Betty's fame caught as Lord Byron calls it, first broke out, and in a few some ears even in the coal-mines. One man, more curious or more idle than his fellows, determined to leave his work, and see the prodigy with his own eyes; and having so resolved, he proceeded, although in the middle of the week, to put on a clean shirt and a clean face, and would even have anticipated the Saturday's shaving, but he was preserved from such extravagance by the motive which prevented Mrs. Gilpin from allowing the chaise to draw up to her door on the eventful morning of the journey,

-lest all

Should say that she was proud. But notwithstanding this moderation he did not pass unobserved. The unwonted hue of the shirt and face were portents not to be disregarded: and he had no sooner taken the road to Birmingham, than he was met • With the mouth aside. Scolds out rageously. ¶ On Hell Bank.

+ Desperately quiet. Night. Public-house.

Most given to swearing. You should have asked.

by an astonished brother, whose amazement, when at last it found vent in words, produced the following dialogue: "Oi say, sirree, where be'st thee gwain?" Oi'm agwain to Brummajum."- -"What be'st agwain there for?"-" Oi'm agwain to see the Young Rocus.""What?"-" Oi tell thee Oi'm agwain to see the Young Rocus."-" Is it aloive?

I ought to thank my readers (if one by one they have not all dropped off before this time) for indulging me so long in my garulity. But I had a reason for it. I wished to preserve some sketch, while the original is yet in existence, of a race which refinement, that fell destroyer of character, has hitherto spared. Soon will these be tales of other times! The primitive simplicity even of the Collieries is threatened. Already have the eyes of Bell and Lancaster searched out even this spot of innocent seclusion; and the voice of education will ere long be heard above the wild untutored sounds which have so long charmed the ears of the traveller. Knight's Quarterly Magazine.

• Going.

THE LITERARY BEGGAR. A PORTRAIT.

"A man of shreds and patches." JACK SCRAP is a literary beggar: destitute of talent, and superficial in education, he is possessed of the mania of wishing to be thought a man of genius and of letters. His ambition, it is true, does not soar astonishingly high; but still it soars beyond his powers. He thinks a newspaper poet the sublimest of mortals; a two-penny theatrical critique the noblest work of human genius; and the editor of a weekly newspaper the most important of all official characters. I have denominated Jack a literary beggar, but in truth the term is not sufficiently comprehensive: Jack not only begs, but also often borrows, and occasionally steals. He maintains with some of his acquaintances the reputation of a clever man, by passing off the productions of others as his own. Should he happen to be detected, be laughs of the business, with an ease and assurance more easily admired than imitated : for, after all, Jack's impudence is his great forte, and whatever his inferiority in other respects may be, in this particular he stands unrivalled. His front is of the true Corinthian brass, and his cheek is as unsusceptible of a blush as a roasted potato.

of nature.

LIVERPOOL FESTIVAL.

GRAND FANCY BALL, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3rd.

street muse.

"Part like Ajut, never to return."

Jack has other modes besides this of supplying his intellectual finances. His begging I have already noticed. As some men never meet you without making a demand on your purse, so he never sees a friend without begging a copy of verses, a critical notice, or an epistolary effusion. What he cannot obtain by solicitation, he will endeavour to procure by stealth. You must have a care, when Jack visits you, to leave no loose papers about: they will disappear in less time than you can say Jack Robinson. As he walks the streets, his eyes are eternally on the ground in search of lettered scraps, and his nose often pays the forfeit of ill-timed industry. He carefully appropriates the wrappers of his butter, cheese, &c. He is profoundly versed in the linings of trunks, and has attentively collated an infinitude of portmanteus. You may often see him at one of the various repositories for ballads, selecting and purchasing those effusions of the GrubEven the chalking upon the walls cannot escape him. He painfully deciphers the fading hieroglyphics traced by pencil, pen, or penknife upon trees, or seats, or windows: those transient aspirations after immortality, where "wit shoots in vain its momentary fires," and where "the universal passion," like the vital powers in the lowest class of animals, is reduced to a few feeble efforts to escape from instant oblivion. I pass over Jack's profound science in tomb-stones; his familiarity with "the names, the years spelt by th'anlettered muse," and a variety of other branches of "literal" knowledge in which his super-eminent skill entitles him, "par excellence," to the name of a "man of letters." Jack's study is truly a cabinet of curiosities. It is a vast repository of literary plunder, and immense receptacle of literary alms. As for his library, that is principally composed of books which he has borrowed, but forgotten to return; a few old magazines, and some obsolete collections of pamphlets. "Byshe's Art of Poetry," and "The Dictionary of Quotations," complete his physic of the soul. Then he has three several portfolios, crammed with original manuscripts. The first contains what be has begged, and this is the least; the second what he has borrowed, which is much largest of all. He has the largest collection of ballads to be found in the United Kingdom. Another book contains innumerable morceaux from the newspapers of the last thirty years, in the arrangement of which paste and scissors have been efficient agents. He has a file of play-bills from the commencement of the present century. Besides all which, he has six trunks filled with those miscellaneous scraps gleaned in his various excursions and perambulations.

When I was first introduced to Jack, he lifed himself, in my opinion, an infinity of pegs, by reciting as his own a copy of verses that were assuredly replete with wit and humour. I could not indeed avoid remarking how much the tone of this production was elevated above the pitch of Jack's conversation: for to do him every justice, a duller rogue never prosed over a Welsh rabbit and a pot of half-aud-half. This, however, I thought nothing of, as I recollected that Gold-larger; nad the third, what he has stolen, which is the smith did not shine in conversation. Jack, in trying this experiment on me, thought himself perfectly secure. The real author was unknown to me and "to fame," and Jack thought it unlikely that we should ever become acquainted, inasmuch as he was at that present reading confined to his bed by a raging fever, and given over by his physicians. But, alas! for human hopes," the bard recovered, either because he was dear to Apollo, or damned by the doctors, and I became acquainted with him early in his convalescence. The first specimen I received of his abilities was the humorous stave in question. I hurried off to Jack, as I really imagined, to cover him with confusion; but he was not so easily thrown off his centre: "Well," says he with the coolest effrontery, "so you have seen B—, and of course discovered my hoax."

Jack is monstrously fond of asking people to join him in writing some work; immensely anxious to play the Beaumont to some credulous Fletcher, who would soon discover that no sinecure could result from the combination. Hitherto his efforts have been signally unsuccessful, he having been able to allure into his toils only a few inexperienced youths, who mistook the frothy effervescence of boyish enthusiasm for the genuine spirit of genius.

The masque being thus removed, Jack thought it useless to attempt any further disguise with me; knowing that I was a scribbler, he began to tease me Jack Scrap, though he cannot be unconscious of his incessantly for contributions. "Give me," he would own utter want of powers, is yet, strange to say, possay, "my dearest friend, your cast-offs. A man of sessed of a large portion of vanity. It may appear your intellectual riches can afford to be charitable. strange that any man should derive gratification from Why will you write things and fling them into the fire, praise to which he knows he has no claim. But Jack &c. when you know how much I am in want? You reconciles matters thus: " Every man has some pecular destroy daily as much as would support a dozen famish-gift of nature--I know that I have no talent for original ed poets." Bat I was proof against the eloquence and flattery of Jack, and refused his solicitations with a stoicism worthy of an ancient Roman.

composition, but then this defect is fully atoned for by plentiful supplies of the discriminating power; I can select with judgment, and appropriate with dexte

The following interesting account is abridged from the Liverpool Courier.

"The crowning entertainment of the whole festival of rooms in the Town-hall, on Friday evening. It was was the magnificent Fancy Ball, in the splendid suite to this that all the hopes and fears of the beau monde were directed, and it was here that all their wishes centred. In all the other entertainments of the festival, except the dress ball, on Monday evening, they were merely deeply interested and delighted spectators; but here they were to be actors, to mingle in the merry and diversified throng, and to give and receive pleasure.

"The magnificent suite of rooms, in the Town-hall, was appropriately fitted up and brilliantly illuminated for the occasion. The principal drawing-room remained as usual; but the eastern and western saloons were fitted up as Turkish pavillions; the tops and sides being sprinkled with gold spangles, consisting of stars. and crescents, a brilliant glass chandelier, suspended from the centre of each, illuminating the whole. A beautiful divan of purple ran round each of these pavilions, presenting a most vivid picture of Oriental luxury and magnificence. The ball-rooms were both in statu quo, most brilliantly lighted up. The great dining-room was the principal refreshment-room. A smaller one, leading from the great staircase, was devoted to the same purpose; and tea and coffee were, we believe, prepared on the ground-floor, for such of the company as preferred these exhilarating beverages. The tables of the refreshment-rooms were decorated with much elegance and taste, and were loaded with fanciful objects of confectionary, delicious grapes, and exquisite wines.

"Nothing could be more pleasing than the appearance of the company as they entered the vestibule, individually or in groups; and so numerous were they, that one almost thought the long succession would, like the phantoms in Macbeth, "stretch to the crack of doom.” It literally and without exaggeration baffled all description. Let the reader imagine, for a moment, that he is in a large room crowded with the natives of all the nations of the globe, in their appropriate aud various. costumes. Let him transport himself back from the present day to the time of Richard Cœur de Lion, and imagine himself living, and acting, and conversing with the contemporaries of nearly all the intervening reigns, in all the freshness and vivacity of life and correctness of costume. Let him imagine Caesar's imperial pomp contrasted with Cato's republican sternness. Let him do all this, and he will have some faint conception of the scene which presented itself in the Town-hall on Friday night.

"Here you might see the republican Cato holding amicable intercourse with the imperial Cæsar. There Richard Cœur de Lion and a Knight Templar, armed from head to foot, with lance in hand, were pacific amidst hosts of Infidels. The Virgin Queen and her beauteous but unfortunate rival, each happy in her own. regal splendour, ceased to distract nations by senseless disputes about the palm of beauty; whilst Lady Jane Gray pursued her course, without the least danger of being brought to the block. There the romantic Raleigh appeared attired as richly as when the splendour of his habiliments and the beauty of his person attracted the eye of Elizabeth: here Buckingham fluttered in more than regal magnificence and splendour. The Cavalier of the time of the first Charles, with his formidable accoutrements, his sugar-loaf hat, and surprising breadth and amplitude of breech, contrasted finely with the superb and elegant Hussar of modern times; whilst the two şervices, the Army and the Navy, went hand in hand in support of the COMMON CAUSE of all present. The magnificent and splendid robes of the soldier of the time of the Emperor Maximilian presented a fine contrast to the simplicity of the modern military costume. Romeos and Hamlets, and all the heroes of the sock and buskin, strutted the

No. 90.-VoL. II.

FRAGMENT OF A PERSIAN TALE.

To painter's gaze, to poet's eye,
There's beauty in yon liquid sky:
The painter's band would seize upon
The wingy clouds that o'er it run ;
The poet mark the bright sobayl
Begem the evening's glowing veil,
And every tinge of beauty trace
On that rich landscape's flowery face-
Explore the earth, and rifle heaven,
For faery gifts to fancy given,
And half believe-so full of bliss
That jasmin scented garden is-
The soul would need no brighter sphere
To draw her from Elysium here.
Bat oh! the heart that beauty's gleams
Have met, and tyrant Love inflames,
Feels each surrounding object wear
A brighter hue when she is near;
The one whose presence lends a glow
Of heaven to things on earth below-

The sky more bright-the stream more pure
Seems to the fond enamoured wooer-
And the bright dreams that glad the heart
Their hues to outward scenes impart,
As suns, themselves too bright to view,
Gild all around with splendour too.
Such was the feeling that possest
That evening young Abdallali's breast,
Urging his simple bark to glide
Upon the breast of that pure tide
That circles Hamet's haram towers;

And ne'er before so warm a heart,
So deeply stricken with love's smart,
Approached confinement's gilded bowers.-
Love flies from shackles, flies to share
The draught of freedom's living air;
Leaves chains, though chains of gold, behind,
The firmest bound, when least confined;
Free as the wild wind let him play,
And sweet his tone, and bright his ray;
But try to bind the wayward child,

And tears shall dim the eyes that smiled;
Like those gay insects, which all bright
Bear splendour on their wings of light-
Imprisoned, lose their beauty's power,
In dull captivity's dark hour.

By stealth impelled-with muffled oar,
The light boat grates against the shore-
One bound has placed him on the sod;
With hasty, but with secret, tread,
Abdallah on the path has sped,
That winds around that stern abode;
And speedily has reached the bower
Where oft before at that same hour,
He poured to Leila Dourah's ear
The tale she loved, yet feared, to hear;
And still the memory of that time-
Of love's first fond delighted prime,
Hangs like a spirit o'er it still,
Without a cloud, without a chill-
For ever lovely, pure, and warm,
A constant glow, a living charm.
And never sure, below, above,
Was spot more framed for tales of love,
Than Leila's flower encircled bower,
Where all of sweets that had the power
To soothe the soul-to glad the eye,
Were met in goodly company.
Flowers scattered round in such fond waste,
As if the Angel of the Spring,

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1823.

Speeding from star to star in haste,

Had scattered from his glowing wing
The leaves of perfume that rejoice-
The airy forms of Paradise;
The warm, the blushing, Persian gul
Blends with the delicate sunbul-
The blossom of the young pomegranate
Scents the fond winds that gently fan it,
And lotoses their warm heads lave
In yonder pure and cooling wave,
That glows in evening's sunset ray
Almost as rich, as warm as they.
Aud as the west wind sank upon
That garden which the bounteous sun,
Beaming with all its power to bless,
Had ripened into loveliness,

It stole from every flower that grew,
From every rose's leaves of dew,
From every drooping violet,

Weeping, with tears of odour wet,
Some new delight, some perfumed charm,
So freshly cool or richly warm,
Uniting such a world of sweets

As never in the West's cold clime,
Even in summer's deepest prime,
The sense of him that wanders meets.
Bat hash-is that a footstep near,
Breaking upon the listener's ear?
My Leila dear,

It is it is.

My only hope-my guiding light-My fair, my young, my sole delight, Oh ever-ever-welcome here!"

Descending to his fond embrace,
With that mild exquisite feminine grace
Which like the downy bloom that glows
Upon the yet unopened rose,

A softer, gentler beauty shed
O'er all she looked-o'er all she said;
With eyes that smiled upon her lover,
And glowing cheeks that blushed all over,
The maiden by her bower is standing,
And healmost in worship-bending.

In fancy's mood-in fancy's hour,
When warm imagination's power
Sweeps wider range, with bolder wing,
From all she scans fresh sweets to bring-
Fond visions of etherial kind
May meet perchance the longing mind,
That musing on the faëry form,
Ripens each trace into a charm,
And fixed on every hue and feature
Of its own self-imagined creature,
Creates a standard to compare
Whate'er it sees of good and fair.
He well remembers, who has met
A being where God's seal has set
The lineaments of beauty, living,
Pare, breathing, glowing transport giving-
Not beauty that allures the sight
Alone, but fills the soul with light,
Where every blush that fades away,
Gives room for warmer tints to play,
Condensing all his floating notions
Of love and undefined emotions
Into one rich deep current, stealing
The heaven of thought, the fount of feeling.

Who so has loved, may aptly deem

How beautifal, how fondly brightWarm as an angel's glowing dream

Pare as that angel's look of light

PRICE 31d.

Was she that stood beside that bower, Lending a charm to evening's hour, That in her presence brighter is Than Aden's scented realms of bliss. Pembroke College, Oct. 1823.

BIOGRAPHY.

WILLIAM BECKFORD, Esq.

This celebrated Gentleman is of royal and noble descent; as appears by an order registered in the Herald's College, bearing date 20th March, 1810, which recites that his father (the celebrated patriotic Lord Mayor of London, whose statue is in the Guildhall, London,) married Maria, daughter and at length co-heir of the honourable George Hamilton, who was the second surving son of James, the sixth Earl of Abercorn. This lady was descended, in a direct line, from James, the second Lord Hamilton, by the Princess Mary Stuart, his wife, eldest daughter of James II, King of Scotland.

Mr. Beckford married the Lady Margaret Gordon, only daughter of Charles, late Earl of Aboyne, by whom he has issue two daughters, namely, Margaret Maria Elizabeth Beckford, and Susanna Euphemia Beckford, who married the present Duke of Hamilton.

It is remarkable that individuals of three branches of the noble house of Howard are descended from the family of Beckford; viz. 1. Henry Howard, Esq. (only son of Lord Henry Molyneux-Howard and nephew to the present Duke of Norfolk), whose grandmother, Mary Ballard Long, was daughter and heir to Thomas Beckford, Esq. grandson of Peter Beckford, Esq. Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica. 2. Charles Angustus Ellis, Lord Howard de Walden (of the Suffolk branch of Howard), whose great-grandmother Anne, the wife of George Ellis, Esq. was elder sister to the Countes of Effingham, and aunt to the present Mr. Beckford. 3. Thomas and Richard, the two last Earls of Effingham, sons of the above Countess.

Mr. Beckford, on coming possessed of his fortune, made the grand tour, and resided many years in Italy; it was here he improved that exquisite taste and love of the Fine Arts, for which he is pre-eminent. On his return to England, he resolved on building Fonthill-which he accomplished; and in August, 1822, he as hastily determined to dispose of it-and accordingly gave directions to that eminent auctioneer, Mr. Christie, of Pall-Mall, London, to dispose of it; and so great was the anxiety to view the splendid edifice, that upwards of 9000 catalogues, at one guinea each, were sold before the day of sale; on the day preceding which, to the surprise and mortification of the public, notice was given that the estate of Fonthill, with all its immense treasures, was sold to Mr. Farquhar for 300,000l. This gentleman has since employed Mr. Phillips to sell the whole of the effects, which will occupy thirty-nine days !

We are told the possessor of this splendid treasure left it almost without a pang. His first resolution was to build a cottage lower down in the demense, near the fine pond, and