POETRY.

WISDOM AND BEAUTY.

(On the Marriage of Dr. Parr with Miss Eyre.)

Old Wisdom, being weary grown,
Of leading all his life alone,

Vow'd he'd no longer tarry;

But burn his pen and drown his books,

And furbish up his faded looks,

And, in right earnest, marry.
A reason good is seldom mist,
By a well practis'd casuist,

For doing what he chooses;
So, turning all his volumes o'er,
The sage collected a long store
Of adequate excuses.
'Cœlebs quid agam?' in an ode
Horace the friendly hint bestow'd,

To bid him please the ladies;

And fluttering round, with foolish plume, Exclaim'd the Tommy Moore of Rome,

But oh!' thought he, this tongue whereon Schrevelius hangs his Lexicon,

Its lingo may offend her.

، When Plato in his cradle lay, His dulcet lips, my authors say,

Received a swarm of bees in ; But Plato's lips did never yet, With snuff instead of honey, set

The Loves and Graces sneezing.' No matter,' cried old Wisdom, 'I Must ، sortes nuptiales' try,

Because it is my duty:

So, doing what I'm bound to do,
I'll think about my pleasure too,

And throw sheep's eyes at beauty."
Then off he set to seek a bride,
First casting wig and cane aside,

Their gravity had shock'd her:
'Till Fame, politely pointing where
Dwelt Beauty in her veil of Eyre,
Directed right the Doctor.
With sly, insinuating, smile,
Like Cephalus he stopp'd awhile,
And sent about a keen eye:
From Ovid Met. he stole his pray'r,
In English 'twas come gentle Eyre,'
In Latin aura veni.

Her grace he classically sought,
And plied with Copid's polyglot
His PAR-alogick pleading;

He pray'd that she would not repel
The solitary PAR-ticle

.Of many a various reading.

The Eyre was sharp and cold enough,
Took airs upon her to rebuff

Such PAR-adox dogmatic:
Oh ho!' cried Wisdom, well I see
There's no specific gravity

In damsels so pneumatic!'

His ardent hopes she bade go freeze,
And begg'd the metamorphoses

Again he'd cast his eye on ;
The Par-allel was written there
Of one who sought a bride in Air,
The Bachelor Ixion.

Fresh arguments he did recount,
That Wisdom should be PAR-amount,
And Beauty bend beneath him:
He proffer'd her his grave advice,
And hop'd the Eyre of PAR-adise

She tenderly would breathe him.
The Eyre received his sighs, and soon
Rose high as any air-balloon,

With pride's full gas inflated; So warmly Wisdom plied his suit She kindly spread her PAR-achute, And from her height abated.

What marvel then the Eyre should come (Nature abbors a vacuum)

Quite hot with Cupid's fever,
He sought for compliments so well,
Exhausted with their force she fell,
And he was her receiver.

Oh Wisdom ! with thy wit and wig,
Can Beauty run thee on the rig

Of sigh and smile and simper?
Turn thee to Horace, when too late,
His satire tells the nuptial fate
Of LUDERE PAR IMPAR.'

SONG.

She is gone! but the last parting beam of her eye Still trembles on memory's sight;

And the love-scented fragrance, that breath'd from her sigh,

Yet hangs round this spot with delight. Her voice still I hear-in the sighs of the breeze, Her step-in the fall of the dew;

And the lays of the warblers, at eve, in the trees,
Seem to whisper her parting adieu.

The spot shall be sacred, for love cannot find
Another so cherish'd as this:

The spirit of Mary here lingers behind,

And charms ev'ry thought into bliss.

As the fond bird will hover around her sad nest,
When 'tis robb'd of its last cherish'd dove,
So roams every wish of the sensitive breast
Round the scenes of its earliest love.

SONNET,

Written in the Country, on a Sabbath Morning. Hail sacred Sabbath morn, with early joy I greet Thy placid stillness which now reigns around, Save that from yonder tapering village spire The merry bells fling forth a gladsome sound. Well may they usher in with cheerful peal, The Christian's Sabbath here of prayer and praise, And while his heart with gratitude expands,

Its sacred ordinances cheerfully obeys. Oh! privilege to him, the words of life to hear, In Zion's courts to be with manna fed; To hear the faithful Shepherd's warning voice, And by his friendly crook to living waters led. Thou Sacred Fount from whence all blessings flow We bless thee for this day-this Sabbath here below. David-Street, August 7th, 1822.

VARIETIES.

C. P.

MAYORS OF GALWAY.-Extracts from the Council Books of Galway, in Ireland :—

James Lynch, Mayor of Galway in 1493; built! the choir of St. Nicholas's Church, and hanged his own son ont of his window, for killing and defrauding strangers, without martial or common law, to show a good example to posterity.

Edmund Deane, Esq. Mayor; came from England to Galway in the year 1500, and brought his pedigree with him, showing his being of the ancient family of the Deanes, of the forest of Deane.

Stephen Lynch, Esq. Mayor, 1523; ordered that none be made free of the corporation unless he shaves his upper lip and speaks English.

A singer once complaining to Sheridan that himself and his brother (both of whom were deemed simpletons) had been ordered to take Ass's milk, but that on account of its expensiveness, he hardly knew what they should do.---" Do?" cried Sheridan, " why suck one another to be sure."

BOTANY.---Since the discovery of the New World, our English gardens have produced 2345 varieties of trees and plants from America, and upwards of 1700 from the Cape of Good Hope, in addition to many thousands which have been brought from China, the East Indies, New Holland, various parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe: until the list of plants now cultivated in this country exceeds 120,000 varieties.

A SIMPLE BAROMETER.---Take a common phial bottle, and cut off the rim and part of the neck. This may be done by a piece of string, or rather whipcord, twisted round it, and pulled strongly in a sawing position by two persons; one of whom holds the bottle firmly in his left hand. Heated in a few minutes by the friction of the string, and then dipped suddenly into cold water, the bottle will be decapitated more easily than by any other means, even than by a guillotine. Let the phial be now nearly filled with common pump-water, and, applying the finger to its mouth, turn it quickly upside-down : on removing the finger it will be found that only a few drops will escape. Without cork or stopper of any kind, the water will be retained within the bottle by the pressure of the external air the weight of air without the phial being so much greater than that of the small quantity within it. Now let a bit of tape be tied round the middle of the bottle, to which the two ends of a string may be attached, so as to form a loop to hang on a nail: let it be thus suspended, in a perpendicular manner, with the mouth downwards; and this is the barometer.---When the weather is fair, the section of the neck, or rather elevated above it, and inclined to be so, the water will be level with and forming a concave surface. When disposed to be wet, a drop will appear at the mouth, which will enlarge till it falls, and then another drop, while the humidity of the atmosphere continues.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Mr. Roscoe's Edition of the Poetical and Miscellaneous Works of Pope, is in the press it includes the notes of Warburton, Warton, and various commentators, with a new Life of the Author, and Annotations.

A Complete Translation into French of Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets, is now, for the first time, printing in Paris.

Peveril of the Peak. By the Author of Waverley, &c. is in the Press.

Our ancient histories, which have so long remained little or imperfectly known, are about to be printed under the authority and by the direction of government. The work is expected to be completed in twelve folio volumes; two of which will be published every year. We understand that Mr. Petrie, the keeper of the records in the Tower, who, as Dib din says, has brushed more dust off old MSS. than any person living, is to have the superintendence of the work, which could not be in better hands.

CORRESPONDENCE.

BATHING.

TO THE EDITOR,

SIR,-Allow me to set my redoubtable antagonist, (G. in the S. B.) right in a few particulars, before taking my final leave of him.

"What an exquisite sense is implanted in innocence, to shrink at the slightest breath of suspicion; there is nothing which can vie with it in delicacy of perception, unless it be conscious guilt." G. conscious of meriting a severe castigation from you, applies your notice of N. T. in the Iris of July 20th to himself, and wishes to make people believe that N. T. are the initials of "A Friend. Now I solemnly declare that they are not my initials, and that I never assumed them. G. seems quite piqued at the manner in which he has been treated. Could he reasonably expect any thing more lenient at my bands, after declaring that I was, through ignorance, seeking to "involve the lives of human beings." Am I to laugh

at his abuse as but a "choleric word?" and is he to

treat retaliation as flat blasphemy!" I shall not again, at least at present, enter into the subject, but shall rest satisfied with the advantage already gained, which does indeed appear to me something like a victory. If tobacco assists in the restoration of the vital functions, it must have the power of elevating and depressing at the same time, which is impossible. In short, G. acknowledges that my objections are unanswerable, " verily," says he, "it is a difficult task" to answer them. I now ask my candid reader, whether he thinks I have merited G.'s contumely? My motive for making the quotations was simply to show, that if the testimony of others were to be taken I could bring forward better evidence than G. I charged him with pretending to be in the possession of facts, and as he has not thought proper to disprove the charge, I must conclude him a dealer in unfounded assertions.

Pendleton, August 6th, 1822.

A FRIEND.

In a note, G. says I never read thewords flat blasphemy in any author. Now this is as good as saying that he is well acquainted with every existing book, and that it is impossible for any one to make a pretended quotation of only two words, but that he can discover the forgery. Admirable book worm, how extensive is thy erudition!

THE MISTAKE;

OR, SIXES AND SEVENS.

"Be particular to observe that the name on the door is "Morning Chronicle, April, 1821.

It is a point which has often been advanced and contested by the learned, that the world grows worse as it grows older; arguments have been advanced, and treatises written, in support of Horace's opinion.

Ætas parentum pejor avis tulit
Nos nequiores, mox daturos
Progeniem vitiosiorem.

We

The supporters of this idea rest their sentence upon various grounds; they mention the frequency of crim. con. cases, the increase of the poor-rate, the licentiousness of the press, the celebrity of rouge et noir. There is, however, one circumstance corroborative of their judgment, to which we think the public opinion has not yet been sufficiently called. We mean the indisputable fact, that persons of all descriptions are growing ashamed of their own names. remember that when we were dragged in our childhood to walk with our nurse, we were accustomed to beguile our sense of weariness and disgust by studying the names, which, in their neat brass plates, decorated the doors which we passed. Now the case is altered! The simple numerical distinction, which is alone emblazoned upon the doors of our dwellings, but ill replaces that more gratifying custom, which, in a literal sense, held up great names

for our emulation, and made the streets a muster-roll of examples for our conduct.

But a very serious inconvenience is also occasioned by this departure from ancient observances. How is the visitor from the country to discover the friend of his bosom, or the mistress of his heart, if, in lieu of the above-mentioned edifying brass plates, his eye glances upon the unsatisfactory information contained in 1, 2, or 3? In some cases even this assistance is denied to him, and he wanders upon his dark and comfortless voyage, like an ancient mariner deprived of the assistance of the stars.

Our poor friend, Mr. Nichol Loaming, has treated us with a long and eloquent dissertation upon this symptom of degeneracy; and certainly, if the advice "experto crede" be of any weight, Mr. Nichol's testimony ought to induce all persons to hang out, upon the exterior of their residences, some more convincing enunciation of their name and calling, than it is at present the fashion to produce.

Nichol came up to town with letters of introduction to several friends of his family, whom it was his first But his first adventure duty and wish to discover. so dispirited him, that, after having spent two mornings at a hotel, he set out upon his homeward voyage, and left the metropolis an unexplored region.

He purposed to make his first visit to Sir William Knowell, and having with some difficulty discovered the street to which he had been directed, he proceeded to investigate the doors, in order to find out the object of his search. The doors presented nothing but a blank! He made inquiries; was directed to a house; heard that Sir William was at home, was shown into an empty room, and waited for some time with patience.

The furniture of the house rather surprised him. It was handsomer than he had expected to find it; and on the table were the Morning Chronicle and the Edinburgh Review, although Sir William was a violent Tory. At length the door opened, and a gentleman made his appearance. Nichol asked, in a studied speech, whether he had the honour to address Sir William Knowell? The gentleman replied, that he believed there had been a little mistake, but that he was an intimate friend of Sir W. Knowell's, and expected him in the course of a few minutes. Nichol resumed his seat, although he did not quite perceive what mistake had taken place. He was unfortunately urged by his evil genius to attempt conversation.

He observed that Sir W. Knowell had a delightful house, and inquired whether the neighbourhood was pleasant. "His next neighbour," said the stranger, with a most incomprehensible smile, "is Sir William Morley." Nichol shook his head; was surprised to hear Sir William kept such company,-had heard strange stories of Sir W. Morley,-hoped there was no foundation,-indeed had received no good report of the family :-The mother rather weak in the head, -to say the truth under confinement ;-the sister a professed coquet,-went off to Gretna last week with a Scotch Officer, Sir William himself a gambler by habit, a drunkard by inclination;-at present in the King's Bench, without the possibility of an adjust

ment-"

Here he was stopped by the entrance of an elderly lady leaning on the arm of an interesting girl of sixteen or seventeen. Upon looking up, Nichol perceived the gentleman he had been addressing rather embarrassed; and "hoped that he had not said any thing which could give offence." "Not in the least,' replied the stranger, "I am more amused by an account of the foibles of Sir W. Morley than any one else can be; and of this I will immediately convince you. Sir William Knowell resides at No. Six,-you have stepped by mistake into No. Seven.- Before you leave it, allow me to introduce you to Lady Morleywho is rather weak in the head, and to say the truth, under confinement;-to Miss Ellen Morley, a professed coquet, who went off to Gretna last week with a half-pay Officer;-finally," (with a very low bow) "to Sir William Morley himself, a gambler by habit, and a drunkard by inclination-who is at present in the King's Bench, without the possibility of an adjustment!"

F, G.

The area of a common parabola is 300, the axis = 20. Required the solidity of a cone whence the parabola is cut, when the convex surface thereof is a minimum?

Question No. 47, by Mr. W. M. Lawrie. A bowl, by its bias, describes a spiral, expressed by z, whose equation is y 3. + y 2

=0.

2

In what direction must the bowl set out, so as to fall upon the Jack, when the length of the cast is 47 yards?

Question No. 48, by Mr. T. Bainbridge, jun,

Supposing a pendulum, whose length is 29.2 inches, has its bob 27 pounds; to find at what part of the rod of that pendulum a weight of one pound must be fixed, so as to have the greatest effect in accelerating the pendulum; or so that the time of the vibration may be the shortest possible, the rod itself being supposed void of gravity?

[We are sorry that any of our Correspondents should have reason to complain of us.-We are told that we do not, by our Mathematical questions, make any appeal either to talent or ingenuity; and that we do not, therefore, offer any thing worthy the leisure hour of our more studious and erudite friends!-It is true we have not, in our selection from the different questions sent to us, always chosen the most difficult, but rather those questions which we considered the most interesting and useful.-We are, however, unwilling to neglect any of our friends; and shall, therefore, in future, occasionally address ourselves more particularly to the Mathematical Adept, when we trust he will not tacitly again condemn us on account of our imbecility.-ED.]

"There was a time," said Foote, entering into the spirit of the party at once-“ there was a time when Old Scratch used to carry stones up high hills to build chapels. Now if he is out of employment, I wish he would busy himself in carrying them down again."

Come, come, do not be too hard upon my worthy friend," said Dr. Ducarel; "he had no voice in the business-it was a subscription affair, raised entirely by the piety of the parish, and out of a very limited fund. Tis a notable monument of a cockney church, I own; but Time, which improves pictures with its sober hues, as you know, Mr. Gainsborough, will cover it in due season with hoary age." "No," said Gainsborough, your true Rhenish improves with age; but a bad picture will never become a good one, though Time work at it double tides. And if Hampstead church should stand on Hampstead Hill, 'till all the colours fade in the rainbow-it will never become picturesque."

"How d'ye do, gentlemen?" said the architect, as he came up to the group-be was a formal, good kind of man" How d'ye do, Mister Garrick?-0,

and the reverend Mister Sterne too!-Sir Joshua Reynolds, your most obedient humble servant-How do you do, Mister Gainsborough?"-bowing to the rest whom he did not know. "What, gentlemen, viewing our fine scenery this fine evening ?-Aye, Mister Gainsborough, this must be just to your satisfaction-I-I envy you gentlemen your powers of the painting-brush-Yes, indeed! you must enjoy the scenery superior to us, who know nothing of these matters. A very pretty picture this, indeed-very pretty. What do you think of my church, Mister Gainsborough, as viewed in perspective from Primrose Hill? I'm told it makes a notable object from that point of view."

"Gainsborough thinks it a better object a great way off, King Harry," said Foote, always enjoying a little mischief.

"Then where would you view it from, Mister Gainsborough?" said the architect, not at all seeing the joke.

་་

"Why from Shuter's Hill," said Garrick, laughing. Shuter's Hill!" exclaimed Flitcroft- Why then, Sir, Mister Gainsborough must look at it through a spying-glass."

"No, Sir," said Gainsborough, "who would not willingly, give offence-"these wags make me say more than I ever thought."-Gainsborough wished them all at Nova Scotia, and would have put an end to the question; but the architect would drive on the discourse." How would you wish to see it, then, Mister Gainsborough ?-Pray favour me with your observations.".

Why, by twilight, or moonlight," said Gainsborough. "And why so, Sir, may I beg to know?" "Because then I should see the structure all in one mass."

"

Aye, I thought so," replied Flitcroft; you gentlemen have always great notions of art. Yes, I'm told it makes a good fine mass, sure enough!-- Dear me! I should like to see a picture of it from your notable genius, Mister Gainsborough-it would be very rural—very picturesque!"

This was pushing the matter rather too far."Picturesque !" echoed the painter, losing his patience "What the devil have you builders to do with the picturesque?"

"But I would have you to know that I am not a builder, Mr. Gainsborough; I am an architect, and have studied in the Barlington school," returned Flitcroft, piqned at the observation.

"Be it so," retorted Gainsborough. "Then, Mr. Architect, who art no builder, why not conjure up a

Gothic building? By the powers, were I king of England, and potent as Harry the Eighth, I would

+ This idle superstition relates to many churches built upon heights, which the Old Euemy was said to have placed there, to fatigue the pious in their approach to the house of worship

On the site of this unpicturesque building stood a little rural church, which being in a ruinous state, was pulled down about the year 1745, when the present church was erected by Henry Flitcroft, then surveyor general, or holding some superior appointment in the Board of Works.

Jupiter!" said Gainsborough-"Ha-ha-ha-ha!" "You have saved me the trouble of saying so, by Flitcroft was nettled, but not to be laughed from the field." Well, Mister Gainsborough," said he, "were you a sovereigu, you would have other despotic laws to punish every good farmer that filled up deep cartruts, or new thatched a crazy barn, or put up a new pailing to keep out the swine-of course." "Yes, by the Lord you are right!-I hate your rich farmers, as I hate the Burlingtonians, (laughing all the while)—the landscape-spoiling rogues!"

Yes," said Foote, taking up the cudgels for his old friend Flitcroft-" and Mr. Gainsborough would command every sheep-shearer to be clean sheared of his ears, for shearing the fleece-they look so picturesque with their shaggy coats."

Certainly," added Garrick, to give the worthy old builder a lift-" Gainsborough had rather go without a coat than rob the innocents of their wool." "That I would, by Jupiter!" said Gainsborough. Mercy on a landscape-painter's tenants," said Sterne, (for all entered into the humour of the dialogue, and all generously took part with Flitcroft)"Aye, mercy on them-their farms must be stocked with Pharaoh's lean kine, broken-down carts, ragged harness, lame wheelbarrows, creaking gates, rag-staffed casements, broken tiles, broken-kneed

horses

"And broken bankrupt tenantry, or the devil's in't," added Foote, "with such Gainsborough-like tattered and torn homesteads."

"That's the farming for the philantrophic Tom," said Garrick ;" and he were rich, they would be happy-for whip me if I do not think he would pay his tenants for doing of nothing-save and except keeping every thing carefully out of repair!"

"A pretty picture this," said Sir Joshua, "of our worthy friend Gainsborough's RURAL ECONOMY."

life, enters into a scholastic but somewhat farfetched argument, to prove that, as that monarch was a great magician, and in habits of he endued his candles with this inexplicable frequent intercourse with ghosts and spectres, property, that he might learn the approach of his supernatural visitants. Suetonius, however, who took his name from the circumstance of his being a tallow-chandler, on which trade he has left a learned treatise, altogether derides this solution as fantastical and vain, asking very pertinently why this ghostindicating quality, even if originally imparted, should have descended to posterity; and prois not blue but purple, such being the proper ceeds to argue first-that the colour assumed translation of the ancient word purpureus; and secondly, that this being the colour sacred to kings and bishops, the number of those personages in the lower regions may have so saturated the air with purple, that all revisitors of our purer atmosphere give it out, like a halo, and impart its hue more particularly to the lights that surround them. This seems to me a fond conceit, and moreover savouring of digal of stars, garters, and mitres, when the same illiberality that made Barry so propainting his scene of Judgment for the Arts and Sciences in the Adelphi.

Certain mysterious ignes fatui always assume spontaneously a bluish tint. In the Pyritegium, or Curfew Act, passed by the Conqueror, is the following exceptive clause.

Hoc nonobstante liceat ut Gulielmus de Wispo, alias Johannes de Lanterna, det lucem cæruleam quocunque quotiesque vellet."+"Be it enacted nevertheless, that Will-o'-theWisp, alias Jack-o'-Lanthorn, have permission to show his blue light wheresoever and whensoever he will."-Whence we learn, that so early as the Conquest this was the prevalent colour of all supernatural flames, and that they were specially exempted from the jurisdiction of extinguisher or snuffers. Swift, in a note on his lines

This squire he dropp'd his pen full soon,
While as the lights burnt bluely,—

Mr. Flitcroft built himself a handsome villa at the end of the Grove on the top of Holly Bush Hill, where he died in 1769. This place, with its beautiful grounds, (called Montagu Grove) is now in the occupation of the Rev. Dr. White, the incumbent of Hampstead.

if properly made, are themselves wick-ed, there may be some secret sympathy or affinity between them; in support of which hypothesis he affirms, that they give out generally a faint blue whenever there is a thief in them. He asserts also, plausibly enough, that there may be a visual deception produced by the preva lent expectation of this coloured light; that nothing is so varying and uncertain as the

BLUE IN THE PRESENCE OF A GHOST.

opties; that men seem to take a perverse delight in confounding the whole theory of colours, as one sees constantly written up over various shops-GREY, green-grocer,—BROWN, blacksmith, BLACK, whitesmith,-SCARLET, blue-maker, &c.; while Nature herself has given us the cameleon as a puzzle; and has so confused one of our field-fruits in its progress to maturity, that we may say with strict regard to truth, "All blackberries are either white or red when they are green, (i. e. un