Tell me, for surely you or none can know
The sacred streams that to its ocean flow,

Teach me the glorious paths that you have trod, To mount like you as rivals to the god.

"A.-Wit is a subject not to be defined,
Whilst heavy organs influence the mind;
Some slight essays we may presume to give,
But first we'll answer in the negative :

'Tis not in learned, mysterious words t

express,

Which more of pedantry than wit confess,
It rarely, very rarely, shines in satyre,
Whose flights arise from envy or ill nature,
Much less in lewd, profane, opprobrious sense,
These vicious habits are, and impudence.
He errs who on grave subjects florid writes,
And he who nervous sense on toys indites;
But puns and quibbles are its opposites:
In banter it may creep, but never fly,
Smart repartee may soar, but not so high.
No, 'tis a THOUGHT sprung from a ray divine,

Which will through clouds of lowering critics

shine,

When in a clear innubilous [sky] serene,

The soul's abstracted purged from dross and

spleen ;

When she her lucid intervals maintains,

Freed from terrestrial and organic chains :

When she is all herself and on her wings,

'Tis then true wit which in extatic charms she sings."

The reader is no doubt familiar with the lines entitled "The Sailor's Consolation," by William

"Lord help 'em, how I pities them
Unhappy folks on shore now! . . .

Both you and I have oftimes heard,
How men are killed and undone,

By overturns from carriages,

By thieves and fires in London.

We know what risks these landsmen run,

From noblemen to tailors;

Then, Bill, let us thank Providence

That you and I are sailors."

The other point of view is given in the British Apollo in the following lines, with which, as our last quotation, we shall take leave of the quaint volume for the present :

THE HAPPY MAN.

High on the lands that bound the Kentish shore,
On whose rough strand alternate tempests roar,
Damon, a country swain, contented lives,

Blest in the homely joys which rural pleasure gives;
Surrounding trees adorn his lonely seat,
And wholesome herbs give relish to his meat,
One little garden does his house adorn,
And his own acres furnish out his corn.
Two comely cows one field of pasture feeds,
That daily yield the milk their master needs;
Here lives the happy swain a peaceful life,
Free from all worldly cares but that of wife.

Hence, with an unshocked mind, he casts his

eye,

To greet the morning beauties of the skie, And sees some tall returning vessel sail, Winged with the breezes of an easy gale : Whose jovial crew, judging their dangers o'er, With noisy shouts salute their native shore, Each thinks how he shall best his gains employ, And antedates bright scenes of promised joy; Till unexpected storms the planks surprise, The bottom bursts, and every sailor dies. Then shakes his head with pity at their fate, And hugs himself in his more happy state.

CHAPTER III.

THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE BRITISH APOLLO.

THE statement that the British Apollo was conducted or "Performed by a Society of Gentlemen" may require to be taken cum grano salis. The Athenian Mercury was persistently advertised by John Dunton as the product of the Athenian Society. In one of his publications, The Young Student's Library, published in 1692, there is a frontispiece representing a dozen bewigged and gowned gentlemen seated at a long table, with writing materials before them, gravely cogitating upon the queries submitted for elucidation, while the astronomer of the society in the foreground is seen making an observation by means of a crossstaff. This engraving, we are expected to believe, contains the portraits of the members of the Athenian Society, but the facts are very different. Although associated at first with Samuel Wesley, Dr. Sault, and Dr. Norris, Dunton was soon

forced to rely on ordinary booksellers' hacks such as Bradshaw and Gildon.

There is, however, more appearance that the statement of the British Apollo can be substantiated than in the case of its prototype. It made some pretence to a knowledge of medicine, and many extracts might be given in proof of the assertion, although some allowance must be made for the state of scientific and medical knowledge at the period.

The motto chosen, which appears on the titlepage of the first volume, is from Ovid:

"Per me quod eritque, fuitque,

Estque, patet: per me concordant carmina nervis. Inventum medicina meum est; opiferque per

orbem

Dicor; et herbarum subjecta potentia nobis.

-Ovid, Metam., lib. i. 517.”

Such a motto was well chosen for a periodical undertaking to reply to a variety of questionsthat it would cultivate the Muses, and that its author was qualified to practise the healing art. There is, indeed, unmistakable evidence that the society whose members answered the queries ad