EPIGRAM,

On a Lawyer's desiring one of the tribe to look with respect to a Gibbet.

THE lawyers may revere that tree
Where thieves so oft have strung,
Since, by the law's most wise decree,
Her thieves are never hung.

EPIGRAM,

On the Author's intention of going to Sea.

FORTUNE and Bob, e'er since his birth,
Could never yet agree,

She fairly kick'd him from the earth
To try his fate at sea.

EPIGRAM,

Written extempore, at the desire of a gentleman who was rather ill-favoured, but who had a family of beautiful children.

SCOTT and his children emblems are

Of real good and evil;

His children are like cherubims,

But Scott is like the devil.

LINES,

Addressed to Mr R. Fergusson on his Recovery from severe Depression of Spirits.

BY MR WOODS.

AND may thy friends the joyful news believe?
Dost thou to perfect sense and feeling live?
Has pain, despair, and melancholy fled,
That shook their gloomy horrors round thy bed?
Has reason chas'd the troubles of thy brain,
And fix'd her native empire there again?
Has health, first bliss! her saving arm inclin❜d,
And given thy body strength to suit thy mind?

Yes! it is true-again I see thee smile;
Again I view thee in the Muses' file,
With artless grace along their gardens move,
And twine wild wreaths as sportively you rove:
For all those friends, in thy affections join'd,
By sympathy, by sentiment refin'd,

No words can justice to their joy afford,
To see a portion of themselves restor❜d!
Even friends unknown-friends by thy merit earn'd,
Rejoice-while dulness only 's unconcern'd:
Wit, sense, and fancy, all their powers display,
To celebrate thy second natal day.

So when some river, trembling with the storm, Which sudden does its beauteous face deform,

Its wonted course no longer can maintain,
But bursts its banks and sweeps along the plain;
Soon as the angry whirlwinds cease to roar,
And sunny skies proclaim the tempest o'er,
No more on stranger shores the surges foam,
But creep in murmurs to their native home;
Untaught by art, their parent waters know,
And once more freely and unruffled flow.

W.

THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES,

An Elegy, occasioned by the untimely Death of Robert Fergusson.

BY THE LATE JOHN TAIT, ESQ.

Quis desiderio sit pudor, aut modus,
Tam cari capitis? præcipe lugubres

Cantos, Melpomene: cui liquidam pater
Vocem cum cithara dedit.

Hor.

DARK was the night—and silence reign'd o'er all; No mirthful sounds urg'd on the ling'ring hour: The sheeted ghost stalk'd ghastly through the hall, And every breast confess'd chill horror's power:

Slumb'ring I lay; I mus'd on human hopes"Vain, vain, (I cried), are all the hopes we form; When winter comes, the sweetest floweret drops, And oaks themselves must bend before the storm."

While thus I spake, a voice assail'd my ear, 'Twas sad 'twas slow-it fill'd my mind with dread!

"Forbear, (it cried), thy moral lays forbear, Or change the strain, for FERGUSSON is dead!

Have we not seen him sporting on these plains? Have we not heard him strike the Muses' lyre? Have we not felt the magic of his strains,

Which often glow'd with fancy's warmest fire

Have we not hop'd these strains would long be heard?

Have we not told how oft they touch'd the soul? And has not Scotia said, her youthful Bard Might spread her fame even to the distant pole?

But vain, alas! are all the hopes we rais'd;

Death strikes the blow-they sink-their reign is o'er ;

And these sweet songs, which we so oft have prais'd

These mirthful strains shall now be heard no

more.

This, this proclaims how vain are all the joys
Which we so ardently wish to attain ;
Since ruthless fate so oft, so soon destroys

The high-born hopes even of the Muses' train."

I heard no more. The cock, with clarion shrill, Loudly proclaim'd the approach of morning

near

The voice was gone-but yet I heard it still-
For every note was echoed back by fear.

"Perhaps, (I cried), ere yonder rising sun
Shall sink his glories in the western wave;
Perhaps, ere then, my race too may be run,
And I myself laid in the silent grave.

Oft then, O mortals! oft this dreadful truth

Should be proclaim'd—for fate is in the sound, That genius, learning, health, and vigorous youth, May, in one day, in death's cold chains be bound."