home," the next night at twelve.-"Remember twelve !" sighed out lady Barbara (Barbarous I had nearly written) whilst the furies hissed apropos in the ballet of Don Juan. The curtain dropped, but the thirst for scandal kept open the waking eye of gentle lady Bab.

ses are at grass, and his carriage is sent to be painted; he has only discharged two servants." (" Prodigious !" said the parson.)

At the French play, the news of his retreat was received with uplifted eye-brows, elevated shoulders, smiles of gratified envy, and with the most illiberal observations. "Ruined for a ducat!" said Colonel Callousheart (his East Indian complexion lighting up with a ray of malicious pleasure); "faith, he played the game well; he must The Dutchess was "at home," and the have hit a few of them; no doubt but the interesting hour of twelve arrived, when the banker, and the coach-maker-the wine- doctor made his way through a crowded asmerchant, confectioner, and club waiters semblage of rank and fashion, and gained will have cause to remember him; a demure the spot where lady Barbara was sitting, sinner! Why, Bob Backhand would have surrounded by a rare set of fame stabbers, procured him a thousand any day.” "And and reputation clippers and hewers. "Well, his honour's tailor wont be able to take dear doctor, what about the runaway?" was measure for measure," insinuated into con- articulated simultaneously by the tabby and versation Sir Benjamin Benares, the borough spinster tribe.-"Sailed for Calais in an broker, who, having made his money in the open boat, I'll bet a hundred," interrupted muck of usury, could not bear to see a rival one, whilst lady Bab sat tapping her feet in independence which the knight himself and fan with anxiety to hear the worst.had earned by early laborious habits in a hos-"An execution in the house!" exclaimed tile climate, and by subsequent monopoly, a divorced dame who had turned prude : commercial manœuvres, and political trim- "come doctor, out with it."-"Why, laming. "You are pleased to be witty, Sir dies," replied the crest-fallen doctor, "I Benjamin," sneeringly replied a member of never was so disappointed in my life; after parliament and neighbour of his; "if you making all possible inquiries, he does not had talked of a 'new way to pay old debts,' owe a shilling in the world." "Impossior rather an old way to pay all debts, you ble !" screamed lady Bab.-" He has five would have been more correct, and would hundred pounds in his banker's hands."— not have merited to be called to order. We" Frightful!" cried her grace." His horhave all of us dined and supped with the poor devil often enough; and I believe, on a balance, I have a few hundred pounds of his money won at whist, where le jeu ne "the rest being on board-wages, except valait pas la chandelle, for I hate whist and one whom he has taken with him; and lastmoderate play: but there is nothing strange ly, his house is not to be let."-" Nor his in all this; fellows of small fortunes will cut books to be sold!" mournfully accented the high into the first circles, and they must pay Reverend." But where did his servant say for it; banishment on the continent, or the he was gone?" inquired Miss Cassandra rules of a prison, this is their only choice." Winterfield.—“ Only into the country,” anAt the Opera, nearly the same vein of swered the doctor." And for how long?" kindness and liberality ran through all his "His domestics could not tell."-"Oh! I see soi-disant friends and intimate acquaintance. through it all," resumed lady Barbara; "it Lady Kalendar assured her circle that he is all a false display, the man is in the rules was extinguished for ever, his lights were of the Bench, but the general blow-up has put out, never more could he harangue the not yet come, and matters are kept snug conversazione party, nor take share in the and quiet for a time."-" All the ladies lookdiscussions of the literary meetings at H-ed full of hope, as did Colonel Callousheart, house; he owed (she boldly asserted) a hun- and Sir Benjamin, who joined the circle.dred thousand pounds, and his house and fur-" No, no," replied the doctor, "for I made niture must come to the hammer.-" Robins inquiries both at the Fleet and at the for ever!" exclaimed in an ecstasy the spin- Bench."-" How good of you!" muttered I ster lady Barbara Bane." I shall get all his old China, French clocks, and the antique cabinet. What a pretty business it would have been, had not his forbidding frigidity disgusted me, when I thought him a responsible person, and set my cap at him!" Even Parson Pilferphrase, who owed him numerous obligations, confessed that be had views on his library. At length doctor Dirtywork stepped in, and assured the party that he would ascertain every circumstance of his evasion, and would bring all particulars to the dutchess of Dampfame's "at

to myself, overhearing all that passed.— "What can have become of him," said two or three of the faded fair ones in unison and harmony together for the first time?" Nothing so simple," observed lord Tubereuse, in a consoling tone, "the man has gaming debts that are not generally known, or some d-d encumbrance or other, and he has drowned himself."-This remark convinced them all." Poor silly fellow!" quoth lady Bab.-"No wonder," uttered her neighbour." I am sorry for it," said Miss Cassandra with a smile in her eye, for she had

borrowed fifty pounds of him.-Finally, the report was believed by all, and was circulated in every quarter the next morning.Month followed month, and he was forgotten by those who had flattered and fed at his expense the most; but his unexpected return changed not only the face of affairs, but many other faces.

He kept his promise, and received with coldness and disdain the fulsome compliments of "Dear me! how well you look!-Where have you been? How unkind not to let us know something about you !-A trip to Paris, no doubt; a tour to the classic ground of Rome, &c.-Are we indebted to a love affair, or the mere love of romantic retirement for missing one of our best friends?"— All this was repelled with coldness and that penetrating look which appals guilt; and, at last, the delinquents slipped away from him, drove round corners, cantered briskly

At the close of one year my friend returned he had made the tour of England; yet, from the change in his mode of life, and the diminution of his expenses, he found himself with half-a-year's income before him, besides the five hundred pounds in his bank-on perceiving him, looked into shop winer's hands; his health was invigorated, in dows, and played the other stale and humiliconsequence of regular hours, pure country ating tricks of those who are ashamed to air, greatly increased exercise, and exten- encounter the honest front of the man whom sive variety of scene; and he felt his mind they have betrayed and calumniated: the refreshed from the absence of dissipation, detractors, although not cured of that exeand the effect which the recruited body pro- crable vice, felt, nevertheless, little in their duced thereon. His house was painted and own eyes, whenever Sydney appeared bethoroughly cleaned, his cattle were reposed fore them. The gourmands lost a good taand brought into regular exercise for his ble, the parson missed a kind friend, and use, and he enjoyed the calm which the ces- the doctor lost a patient; whilst he, returnsation of thundering knocks at his door, from ed from retirement, found his fortune suffice idlers and card-droppers, effected. Nobody for every reasonable expense, leaving him, expected him, and he warned his domestics at the same time, an ample fund for acts of not to announce his arrival until he should glowing charity, which brought with them give them orders to do so. A literary work their own reward, and made him regret that which he had a mind to support and embark such sums had been formerly diverted into in, however, made it necessary for him to another channel. Nor did the Gentleman send to me, and I failed not to inform how Missing spend his time and money in a forkind his friends had been in his absence.-eign country; he had made the tour of al"It is little more than I expected,"-ob- most all Europe, as a part of his education, served he; " I saw through a number of and he confined his travels on this occasion treacherous acquaintances, base sycophants, and insipid guests," continued he: "I began to be aware that most of them only sought my society for what they could get of me, or asked me to their late and feverish parties as an unit to swell the book of numbers. I have been long since tired of dissipated male companions and of flirting, gaming, and gossipping female ones, of painted faces, and false tresses, and of falser hearts, and the more disguised features of the mind; of the enormous expenses of the clubs, and irrationality of living of the circle in which I moved; and lastly of folly and ingratitude, which one must be incessantly meeting with in such company. I have cut ali the clubs, and shall get rid of all my visitors, except about half-a-dozen, ending our acquaintance with the last exchange of cards, which shall not take place, on my part, until one month after receiving theirs; nor shall I forget to apply to Miss Cassandra for the money which she owes me, nor to make Sir Matthew Martingale pay me the two hundred pounds which he said that he lost to me, but asserted falsely that I had received. I will not commit you as my friendly informer of all this duplicity, but the actors in the plot shall read contempt on my brow, and disgust towards them, by my shaking off their society."

to his own native land; first from a patriotic principle, and next for the purpose of seeing many parts of England and Scotland till then unknown to him; and the beauties and curiosities whereof amply repaid him for his journey.

It seems certainly strange that so many Englishmen who have travelled extensively abroad, should remain ignorant to the end of their lives of the curious and romantic scenery at home, and wholly uninformed of the local and statistical history of their native and neighbouring soils. The lakes and mountains, the sea-ports, and richly cultivated tracts of land in England, and the sister kingdoms, together with their local, and mineralogical, and geological histories, are most interesting to a Briton; and it must be humiliating to him, from time to time, to meet with strangers better informed on these subjects than himself. The utility and pleasure of these researches and pursuits were obvious to my friend, after his disappearing from the haunts of extravagance, and of false pleasure; but the knowledge which he acquired of the book of man by this stratagem was immediately advantageous to him.

If a number of those who waste their fortunes and constitutions in Winters in Lon

don, and who are forced, from their evil ef-| fects, to expatriate themselves, to the detri ment of their own interests, and those of their numerous creditors, would take a lesson from the Gentleman who was only missing for so short a time, the state of the country would be more prosperous, and (in the event of their having dipped their estates) they would more readily retrieve their losses, than from the exchange merely of folly and expense at home, for expense and folly abroad, added (most probably) to the degradation of national character, and, perhaps, to the inhabiting of a miserable French or German prison, far from the sympathies, assistance, and accommodation which they might experience amongst Britons, which they ought never to lose sight of, and which are always to be found by those who merit them.

THE MANSION OF REST.

By the Right Hon. Charles James Fox.
I talk'd to my flattering heart,
And chid its wild wandering ways;
I charged it from folly to part,

And to husband the rest of its days:

I bade it no longer admire

The meteors which fancy had dress'd; I whisper'd 'twas time to retire,

And seek for a Mansion of Rest.

A charmer was listening the while,
Who caught up the tone of my lay;
"O come then," she cried, with a smile,
"And I'll show you the place and the way:"
I follow d the witch to her home,

And vow'd to be always her guest:
"Never more," I exclaim'd," will I roam
In search of the Mansion of Rest."

But the sweetest of moments will fly,
Not long was my fancy beguiled;
For too soon I confess'd, with a sigh,
That the syren deceived while she smiled.
Deep, deep, did she stab the repose

Of my trusting and unwary breast,
And the door of each avenue close,

That led to the Mansion of Rest.

Then Friendship enticed me to stray
Through the long magic wilds of Romance;
But I found that she meant to betray,

And shrunk from the sorcerer's glance..
For experience has taught me to know,
That the soul that reclined on her breast,
Might toss on the billows of woe,

And ne'er find the Mansion of Rest.
Pleasure's path I determined to try,

But Prudence I met in the way;
Conviction flash'd light from her eye,
And appear'd to illumine my day :
She cried as she show'd me a grave,

With nettles and wild flowers dress'd,
O'er which the dark cypress did wave,

"Behold there the Mansion of Rest."

She spoke and half vanished in air,

For she saw mild Religion appear
With a smile that would banish despair,
And dry up the penitent tear.

Doubts and fears from my bosom were driven,
And, pressing the cross to her breast,
And pointing serenely to Heaven,
She show'd the true Mansion of Rest.

LINES WRITTEN ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND.
[He died at Rome. of the Mal' aria.]

O Rome! amongst thy temples high,
And columns with the wild weed crown'd,
And sculptured capitals that lie
Struck down, and in the grasp of Time,
How many a mighty heart sublime
Lies dead and stripp'd of all its fame,
Like those who never earn'd a name,
Or played a base or vulgar part;
And now-thou hast another heart,
(No better in the wide world found)
Buried in thy immortal ground,
For thou-(although thy works of stone,
All in their times renowned known
As things of mere mortality
Must perish-) thou canst never die.

But he, the burthen of my song,
Who came, but might not tarry long,
In summer strength hath perished.
Oh! many a thing beside the grave
Whom few could love, and none could save,
Hath he, with weak but hurrying tread
Passed.And he is with the dead.
'The dead'-whom now 'twere vain to call
While lying in their silent sleep,
And yet we cannot help but weep,
Albeit 'tis idle, idle all.
Then, let this poor memorial
Remind some of his early day,
And to all who lov'd him, say
Though gone, he is not quite forgot.
While to those who knew him not,
It is enough to tell that he

Was such a man as men should be;
That pray'r, nor art, nor love could save;
And that he lies in a foreign grave.

PROCTER.

There is no such thing as real happiness in life. The justest definition that was ever given of it, was, 'A tranquil acquiescence under an agreeable delusion."

when abused by an impudent fellow, said, that if an ass kicked at him, he would not degrade himself by returning the compliment; yet the contempt expressed in the observation proved that he felt the insult; BIOGRAPHICAL Memoirs are generally and our great modern moralist, Johnson, has perused with avidity, often with much plea-left it on record, that even his gigantic sure, as a fruitful source of amusement and mind could not rise above that feeling; for instruction, although this is sometimes ob- he says, tained at the expense of the character delineated. It formed part of the litany of a man well acquainted with human nature"God preserve me from my friends! I am aware of my enemies." This prayer might be uttered by every one who prizes posthumous fame, and who imagines it possible that his "sayings and doings" will be recorded when he is stretched in the narrow house, alike insensible to the voice of praise

although she may tickle some itching ears, | Yeares after, and the mayd did marrye

and gratify those who wish to see her or her bantling made ridiculous, she is rashly exposing both herself, and the object of her idolatry, to the pity or contempt of her auditors. How remarkable has this been exemplified in the case of the author last quoted! How many of his licentious extemporaneous effusions have been preserved and recorded by blind admirers. They were the ideas of the moment, elicited by convivial hilarity, unpremeditated sallies, prompted by the impulse of youthful passions and strong feelings, aided by the intoxication of flattery and potent liquor. The preservation of these has caused a blush on the cheek of those who respect his talents, and know what excuses and allowances ought to be made for a frail mortal; while it bas afforded his detractors and enemies a fair pretence for insulting his memory, and talking of him with contempt; they can see and know his failings, but they are unacquainted with the strength of his temptations, or how much may have been resisted. When we are informed that Pope was an epicure, Gray a finical spruce fop, and Thomson and Johnson gluttons, in spite of ourselves, it in some degree lessens our respect for their characters; and although good-nature may philosophically smile at the

"Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise,"

yet bigotry, envy, and narrow-minded or
malignant dispositions, will exult over these
frailties with indecent triumph. But no
public character has suffered more severely
from the blind idolatry of his biographer
than Johnson. The gossiping chit-chat
and untiring garrulity of Boswell has ex-
posed the great man, in his most unguarded
moments; forgetting that there are attitudes
and positions in which we may allow our-
selves to appear before a very intimate
friend, at the moment when restraint is
banished, and the mind unbent, but which a
sense of decorum would paint as an indecent
exposure, should we be thus seen by the
public. Yet this has Boswell done; and
the public have gazed on the hapless vic-
tim; some with a sigh of pity, many with
wondering curiosity, and not a few with
gloating and delighted eye; gazing on every
scar, excrescence, or deformity, which was
injudiciously laid bare before them; and
ever after find him, in his own language,
"Perversely grave, and positively wrong

CLERKE RYCHARDE AND MAYD MARGARET.
"A man must nedes love maugre his hed,

He may not fleen it though he should be ded" Chaucer.
There were Two who loved each other,
For many yeares, till hate did starte,
And yet they never quite could smother
The former loue that warmed theire harte;
And both did loue, and both did hate
Till both fulfilled the will of Fate.

One that her harte had ne'er approued;
Nor longer could Clerke Rychard tarry,
Where he had loste all that he loued;
To foraigne landes he recklesse wente,
To nourish Loue, Hate, Discontente.
A word, an idle word of Follye,
Had spilled theire loue when it was yonge;
And Hatred, Grief and Melancholy,
In either hearte as idle sprung,
And yet they loued, and Hate did wane,
Aud much they wished to meete againe.
Of Rycharde still is Margaret dreming,
His image lingered in her breast;
And oft at midnighte to her seeming
Her former louer stood confeste,
And shedding on her bosom teares,
The bitter wrecks of happyer yeares.
Where'er he wente by land or ocean,
Stil Rycharde sees Dame Margaret there;
And everie throb and kind emotion
His bosom knew were felt for her;
The power to loue, with first loue perished.
And neure newe loue hath he cherished,
Homeward is Clerke Rycharde sayling,
An altered man from him of olde;
His hate had changed to bitter wayling,
And loue resumed its wonted holde
Upon his harte, which yearned to see

The hauntes and loues of Infancie.

He knew her faithlesse, nathless ever,
He loued her though no more his owne;
Nor could he proudly nowe dissever
The chaine that round his hearte was thrown.
And sought her, but to say adieu.
He loued her, without Hope, yet true,

For euen in parting there is pleasure,
A sad swete joy that wrings the soule;
And there is grief surpassing measure
That will not byde nor brook control,
Does ease the harte albeit by breaking!
And yet a formal fond leave-taking
Oh there is something in the feeling,
Aud tremblynge faulter of the hande;
And something in the teare down stealing,
And voyce soe broken, yet so blande;
And something in the worde Farewell
Which worketh like a powerful Spel.
These Lovers met and never parted;
They met as Lovers woute to do,
Who meet when both are broken hearted,
To breathe a laste and long adieu;
Pale Margaret wepte, Clerke Rycharde sighed
And folded in each other's arms, they died.
Yes, they did die ere word was spoken,
Surprise, Grief, Love, had chained their toung,
And nowe that Hatred was ywroken,
A wonderous joy in them had sprung;
And then despaire froze either harte
Which lived to meete, but died to parte.
Clerke Rycharde he was buried low
In faire Linlithgow, and his Love
Was layde beside him there, and lo
A bonny tree did grow above

Their double grave, and broad it flourisht
Greene o'er the spot where first Love perisht.