A curious Attempt at the Sublime.

"THE wild rocks raised their lofty summits till they were lost in the clouds, and the vallies lay covered with everlasting snow. Not a tree was to be seen, or a shrub even big enough to make a tooth pick."

Cook's Voyage

COL. BODENS, who was very fat, being accosted by a man to whom he owed money, with a how d'ye ? answered, " Pretty well I thank you; you find I hold my own.”— "Yes, Sir," rejoined the man," and mine too, to my sorrow."

THE deceased Count Bibb, one night at the cider-cellar, told a friend that he intended to leave twenty pounds to be spent at his funeral; which induced the other to ask him, if the money was to be spent going or returning? Bibb good-humouredly replied, "Going, to be sure; for when you return, I shan't be with you." [Lon. Pap.]

On Lord

beautifying the back front of his house....By a Waterman.

ON silver Thames I 've daily row'd,
Some twenty years or thirty,
And still my Lord his backside show'd
Black, yellow, brown, or dirty.

But t' other morn, surprised, I cried,
So white and clean it made is,

This cannot be my Lord's backside,

It surely is my Lady's.

British Martial.

The Chain of Government.

WHEN Beelzebub first to make mischief began, He the woman attack'd, and she gull'd the poor

man:

This Moses asserts, and from hence would infer, That woman rules man, and the devil rules her.

Ibid.

Epitaph, intended for the facetious J. Hearty, comedian, who died of a consumption... By a gene tleman of the Boston Theatre.

BENEATH these stones

Are laid the bones,

The bowels and the hide→→→

Good lack!

The flesh, they say,

Had run away

Some time before he died

Poor Jack !

SELECT SENTENCES.

THE single effort by which we stop short, in the down-hill path to perdition, is, itself, a greater exertion of virtue than a hundred acts of justice.

A GOOD Companion is a prize.

Good spirits are often taken for good nature yet nothing differs more. Insensibility being generally the source of the former -and sensibility of the latter.

ONE great source of vexation proceeds. from our indulging too sanguine hopes of enjoyment from the blessings we expect, and too much indifference for those we possess, Young says

"The present moment, like a wife, we shun, And ne'er enjoy, because it is our own."

GREAT errours are often connected with elevated sentiments; but in order to understand this, we must ourselves possess greatness of soul,

THOSE Who outlive their incomes by splendour, in dress, or equipage, are well said to resemble a town on fire-which shines by that which destroys it.

FLACOURT, in his history of the island of Madagascar, gives us a sublime prayer, used by the people we call savages. "O Eternal! have mercy upon me, because I am passing away: -O Infinite! because I am but a speck :- O Most Mighty! because I am weak :-O Source of Life! because I draw nigh to the grave :-O Omniscient ! because I am in darkness :-O All-bounteous! because I am poor:-O All-sufficient! because I am nothing."

THE MINSTREL.

FOR THE POLYANTHOS.

AN EPISTLE TO MY MUSE:

Or, a Postscript to the Epilogue to the Theatrical

Season.

iterum, iterumque vocavi....Virgil.

THEY tell me, Muse, that thou and I, sweet rogue,

Have sadly miss'd it in our Epilogue.

Jack Dash pronounc'd it a most horrid bore;
The author's a mere quiz, Dick Dumpish swore;
And e'en Miss Phebe showed her sex's spite,
And "vowed the thing was vastly impolite."
But what, my Muse, should more surprise create,
Miss Prue declared it so indelicate,

So thick with double vile entendre strown,
It made her blush to read it when alone!
O DELICACY! blushing, timorous maid,
Of substance nought, of shadows oft afraid,
Who can't a sermon read without a qualm,
And find'st a double meaning in a psalmi ;
And whilst the poet's page thy heart alarms,
With cobweb muslin scarcely veils thy charms;
Pardon, sweet nude, and calm thy prudish flutter,
Just glance thy eyes on thy own tonish tucker:
Let Modesty pronounce, with judgment clear,
Who most offends her eye, or most her ear.

But zounds, what noise distracts my nerves of hearing!

What horrid cursing, damning, sinking, swearing!

It seems as if a thousand Jacks were braying,
Or if ten thousand *****s were huzzaing.

66

flat,

——

froth!

low,

stuff,

the poet and the printer both.

mean

O Gad confound the odus rhyming fellur !
I hates him worser than the Moor Urthellur :
I promus him that I despise his drivel-
O he's the very emblum of the Divel."

This chasten'd language surely well explains From whence proceed these Chesterfieldian strains :

Such brimstone tropes with certainty presage That school of Virtue, our pure, moral stage. For lo! the Green Room quakes with wild

uproar,

Vindictive furies seize the Thespian Corps ;
Melpomene her blood-stained dagger draws,
Prepares her poison'd bowl to drench my jaws;
The shingle dagger, Harlequin, is thine;
Vex'd Thalia dips her comick lash in brine;
And all the play-house gods prepare for fighting,
With sheepskin thunder and bright rosin light-
ning;

While *****'s voice, like London watchman's rattle,

Or light-horse conch shell, sounds to the corps to battle

;

And Atè fierce, in shape of Mrs. ****,
Cries Havock! and lets slip the pups of war.

But say, my Muse, what all this noise provokes,
Why dwells such mighty rage in little folks?
'T is our vile epilogue has caused this fury,
And raised this tumult in our Yankee Drury.
Some are enrag'd, their merits were not rais'd,
And others vex'd that rivals were beprais'd;
Some angry, that their slightest faults were
scann'd;

And some d -d mad, because they were not damn'd;