nation of a father, the loud and dolorous lamentations of a fond mother, at the flight of their only child. The whole village were sharers in our sorrow; for Dick had endeared himself to his fellows by a frank, generous, friendly disposition; and every girl in the parish bemoaned his loss; for, besides his natural gallantry, he was tall, stout, handsome, of a happy physiognomy, and possessing brilliant black eyes. Nancy was unconsolable for him-Nancy, the lovely brunette, who was wont to be the joy of his heart, the object of his fondest hopes! her loud and frantic grief, which prudence laboured in vain to restrain, terminated at length in silent but consumptive despondency. Various were the conjectures formed as to the route he had taken, and the way of life he had embraced. Sometimes we imagined that he had enlisted in a troop of strolling players; at others, we supposed he had emigrated to Heliconia, Pindus, or Parnassus, those foreign countries whose outlandish praises were perpetually in his mouth. A letter from him, at London, six months after his departure, relieved us from this uncertainty. He was sensibly affected,' he said, by the stab which his abrupt departure must have given to the parental bosom; but that he could resist no longer the powerful vocation of Phoebus, the Deity to whom, in future, the labours of his life should be devoted. Tell my lovely Nancy,' he proceeds, 'that from her presence nothing could have divorced me except the more attractive allurements of the Sisters Nine, in whose good graces at length all my wishes are absorbed.' Imagine, Sir, the horror, the anguish of my soul, when I learned from his own mouth, as it were, that my son had forsaken the faith of his forefathers, turned Saracen, and lived in a state of incest with Nine Sisters! This sad piece of intelligence threw his poor mother into a violent brain fever, from which she did not recover for nine months. As soon as the state of her health and the arrangement of my affairs permitted me to leave her, I posted up to London, in order, if possible, to reclaim this abandoned boy, or rather to cure him of a fatal distemper that had unhinged his understanding, and caused his afflicted parents to press with hurried steps towards the grave. Should this part of my son's history prove in any degree agreeable to your readers, I shall, on a future occasion, send you an account of his adventures in London, and the distresses he suffered while in the service of the Patrons of the Muses; by whom, afterwards found, he meant the London Booksellers. Your's !! TOM HOMELY. POETRY. 10 THE TWILIGHT HOUR. WHEN Day's last tints forsake the rosy west, Of silv'ry lustre o'er the landscape throws; Of hills, and vales, of groves, and winding streams, ALBERT. INGRATITUDE. RUSH forth, ye gales, descend, thou drifting snow, Thy icy sceptre o'er the wat'ry world Stretch, and its waves arrest from pole to pole; Let storm on storm thro' frighten'd æther roll, And round Heav'n's arch its thunderbolts be hurl'd: Th' ungrateful friend more dreadful still to prove, Who drinks, in Sorrow's hour, oblivion to thy love! ELEGIAC SONG. LOUD howls the wind, hard beats the rain, That bears my love, far, far from me! Ah! dost thou think on love and me? Perhaps to thee the lightning flies, And aweful thunders roll in vain! Ev'n now, perhaps, my lover lies Low sunk beneath yon raging main ! She said, and o'er the wat'ry way All cold and pale, expos'd he lay, She saw, and ceas'd her plaintive song: ALBERT. A NEW APPLICATION OF A FASHIONABLE PHRASE. NOT speaking French, NAT ask'd, with English grace, I call'd, unknowing, my respects to pay; NAT cried, My wife's nail'd fast !---she's en bon point to-day!' QUIZICUS MUM. PROLOGUE TO PIZARRO. WRITTEN BY RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, ESQ. CHILL'D by rude gales, while yet reluctant May As some fond maid, whom matron frowns reprove, Scour the New Road, and dash thro' Grosvenor-gate:- How vastly full! A'n't you come vastly late? Imperfect yet, we hail the cold delay; Should our play please-and you're indulgent ever- THE CALM. THE winds are hush'd-once more the skies serene, The rain-drop quivers on the verdant spray, And NATURE smiles thro' pearly gems of dew! When from their huts the rural tribes advance?Who, while no Curfew sounds the evening knell, With nimble footstep trace the mazy danceWhile songs of humour, innocence, and glee Bespeak and bless the SONS OF LIBERTY! SONG TO DELIA. IN vain I leave the lonely shade, With silent steps, I sadly stray! And ease a breast o'er-whelm'd with pain? THE ANGRY POET. THIS pen shall trim you.'Well, agreed: W. B. |