The natural music of the mountain reed-
For here the patriarchal days are not

A pastoral fable-pipes in the liberal air,
Mixed with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd;
My soul would drink those echoes.-Oh, that I were
The viewless spirit of a lovely sound,

A living voice, a breathing harmony,
A bodiless enjoyment-born and dying
With the blest tone which made me!

XXXIV.

The Utility of Spectacles; or, Helps to Read.-BYROM.

A CERTAIN artist, I've forgot his name,
Had got for making spectacles a fame,
Or Helps to Read-as, when they first were sold,
Was writ upon his glaring sign in gold;
And, for all uses to be had from glass,
His were allowed, by readers, to surpass.
There came a man into his shop one day-
Are you the spectacle contriver, pray!
Yes, sir, said he, I can in that affair
Contrive to please you, if you want a pair.
Can you? pray do then.-So, at first, he chose
To place a youngish pair upon his nose,
And book produced, to see how they would fit:
Asked how he liked 'em?-Like 'em? not a bit-
Then, sir, I fancy, if you please to try,

These in my hand will better suit your eye-
No, but they don't-Well, come, sir, if you please,
Here is another sort, we'll e'en try these;
Still somewhat more they magnify the letter:
Now, sir?-Why now-I'm not a bit the better-
No! here, take these that magnify still more;
How do they fit?-Like all the rest before.
In short, they tried a whole assortment through,
But all in vain, for none of 'em would do.
The operator, much surprised to find
So odd a case, thought, sure the man is blind:
What sort of eyes can you have got? said he.
Why, very good ones, friend, as you may see.

Yes, I perceive the clearness of the ball-
Pray, let me ask you-Can you read at all?
No, you great blockhead; if I could, what need
Of paying you for any Helps to Read?
And so he left the maker, in a heat,
Resolved to post him for an arrant cheat.

XXXV.

The Newcastle Apothecary.-COLMAN.

A MEMBER of the Esculapian race
Lived at Newcastle upon Tyne:
No man could better gild a pill,
Or make a bill,

Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister,
Or draw a tooth out of your head,
Or chatter scandal by your bed,

Or give a glister.

His fame full six miles round the country ran;
In short, in reputation he was solus;

All the old women called him "a fine man!"
His name was Bolus.

Benjamin Bolus, though in trade,

(Which often will genius fetter) Read works of fancy, it is said,

And cultivated the Belles Lettres.

And why should this be thought so odd?
Can't men have taste to cure a phthisic?
Of poetry though patron god,

Apollo patronizes physic.

Bolus loved verse, and took so much delight in 't, That his prescriptions he resolved to write in 't

No opportunity he e'er let pass

Of writing the directions on his labels,
In dapper couplets-like Gay's fables,

Or rather like the lines in Hudibras,

Apothecary's verse!-and where's the treason?
"Tis simply honest dealing-not a crime;
When patients swallow physic without reason,
It is but fair to give a little rhyme.

He had a patient lying at death's door,

Some three miles from the town-it might be four;
To whom one evening Bolus sent an article
In pharmacy, that 's called cathartical,

And, on the label of the stuff,

He wrote this verse,

Which one would think was clear enough,
And terse:

"When taken,

To be well shaken."

Next morning, early, Bolus rose,
And to the patient's house he goes
Upon his pad,

Who a vile trick of stumbling had:
It was indeed a very sorry hack;
But that's of course,

For what 's expected from a horse,
With an apothecary on his back?
Bolus arrived, and gave a loudish tap,
Between a single and a double rap.

The servant lets him in with dismal face,
Long as a courtier's out of place,

Portending some disaster;
John's countenance as rueful looked and grim,
As if the apothecary had physicked him,
And not his master.
"Well, how's the patient?" Bolus said.
John shook his head.

"Indeed!-hum!-ha!-that's very odd! He took the draught?"-John gave a nod. "Well?-how?-what then?-speak out, you dunce." "Why, then," says John, "we shook him once." "Shook him!-how?" Bolus stammered out.

"We jolted him about."

"Zounds! shake a patient, man-a shake wont do."

No, sir-and so we gave him two." "Two shakes!-odds curse!

"T would make the patient worse." "It did so, sir-and so a third we tried."

"Well, and what then?"-"Then, sir, my master died."

XXXVI.

The Monk and the Jew, or the Catholic Convert.-
ANONYMOUS.

To make new converts truly blest,
A recipe-Probatum est.

Stern winter, clad in frost and snow
Had now forbade the streams to flow;
And skating peasants swiftly glide
Like swallows o'er the slippery tide;
When Mordecai-upon whose face
The synagogue you plain might trace-
Fortune, with smiles deceitful, bore
To a cursed hole, but late skinned o'er;
Down plumps the Jew; but in a trice,
Rising, he caught the friendly ice:
He gasped; he yelled a hideous cry;
No friendly help, alas! was nigh,
Save a poor monk, who quickly ran
To snatch from death the drowning man:
But when the holy father saw

A limb of the Mosaic law,

His outstretched hand he quick withdrew.

"For Heaven's sake, help!" exclaims the Jew.

"Turn Christian first!" the father cries.

"I'm frozen to death!" the Jew replies.

"Frozen!" quoth the Monk, "too soon you'll know, There's fire enough for Jews below;

Renounce your unbelieving crew,

And help is near." "I do! I do!"

"Damn all your brethren, great and small." "With all my heart: Oh! damn 'em all!

Now help me out."

"There's one thing more:

Salute this cross, and Christ adore!"

"There! there! I Christ adore!" ""Tis well;
Thus armed, defiance bid to hell!-
And yet, another thing remains,
To guard against eternal pains:
Do you our papal father hold
Heaven's vicar, and believe all told
By holy church?"-"I do, by fate!
One moment more will be too late!
Drag, draw me out-I freeze! I die."
"Your peace, my friend, is made on high;
Full absolution here I give;

Saint Peter will your soul receive.
Washed clean from sin, and duly shriven;
New converts always go to heaven.
No hour for death so fit as this;
Thus, thus, I launch you into bliss."
So said the father,-in a trice
His convert launched beneath the ice!

XXXVII.

The Patriot's Hope.*-EWING.

SIR, our republic has long been a theme of speculation among the savans of Europe. They profess to have cast its horoscope, and fifty years was fixed upon by many as the utmost limit of its duration. But those years passed by, and beheld us a united and happy people; our political atmosphere, agitated by no storm, and scarce a cloud to obscure the serenity of our horizon: all of the present was prosperity; all of the future, hope.-True, upon the day of that anniversary two venerated fathers of our freedom and of our country fell; but they sunk calmly to rest, in the maturity of years and in the fulness of time; and their simultaneous departure on that day of jubilee, for another and a better world, was hailed by our nation as a propitious sign, sent to us from heaven. Wandering the other day in the alcoves of the library, I

* Extract from a speech delivered in the United States senate by the Hon. Thomas Ewing, senator from Ohio, at a period of much excitement.