I've sought the friends, those trusty friends,
When days were prosperous,
Who vow'd they ne'er could make amends
To one so generous.

I've sought that lovely lady bright,

Whose smiles were ever there,
Who nam'd me oft her own true knight,
And champion of the fair.
The halls now moulder in decay,
The lute its tones hath lost,
And friends dismay'd have shrunk away,
From me in peril tost.

No welcome from the lady's lip,
No cheering smiles for me,
No genial warmth from blazing chip,
No sounds of revelry!
Friends, lute and lady, all are gone,

Which my fond heart once priz'd;
The very birds too, they have flown
From one so much despis'd?

Despis'd, said'st thou! nay, not despis'd, Tho' trait'rously deceiv'd

By those for whom I oft have sigh'd,

And but too oft believ'd.

But still I have hope's sunny rays

To cheer my adverse lot; Bright transient beams of happy days, 'Tis best thou wert forgot.

R. C. B.

TROTTER THE TEA-TOTALLER.

Every body has heard of the Soho Bazaar; but every body is not acquainted with its management. The owner of this property is a person who is sometimes styled Captain TROTTER, a title to which a vast many upstarts in this metropolis aspire; but our Captain sports personal pretensions to a military reputation, from the circumstance of wearing a pair of moustachios, which, like the chamelion, are in the habit of changing their hue

From red to black, from purple to a brown, as the atmosphere acts upon his Circassian dye. Captain Trotter, however, notwithstanding the Saracenic severity of his countenance, entertains a most especial desire to be considered a very moral man; and in order to keep his passions from rising to a licentious heat, he subdues them with the cooling beverages of teatotalism. Subjecting himself to such a regimen, no person could be better adapted, in his own opinion, than himself to investigate and watch over the morals of the females who occupy stands in his bazaar; and accordingly every applicant undergoes his own scrutinizing examination before she is admitted to vend her wares. In the first place the applicant must produce a certificate signed by eight respectable people, that she is of an entirely unblemished reputation, and that she never took a walk by moonlight under any circumstances. That being arranged, the Captain then desires her to take off her bonnet and her gloves, and determines whether her dress is sufficiently simple, and her whole appearance sufficiently chaste. Supposing, that determined, he informs her she must never exchange a word with any one at an adjoining stand, never be seen to eat even a piece of biscuit, or drink a glass of water, on pain of expulsion from the bazaar at an hour's notice. This silent system being fully explained, the most moral part of the business, and that in which the Captain takes the greatest interest, is then duly proceeded with. A payment of two shillings is to be handed over to his receiver and clerk, one Mr. Bryant, every morning; and in default of a single payment, the stand is immediately closed. The moral scruples of the Captain on this point are most religiously enforced, as the case of a poor widow, who had a stand for the sale of glass-and who was compelled from time to time, as she had but little custom, to part with her stock at a ruinous sacrifice, that she might keep up her payments-most forcibly illustrates.

Now, we despise cant in every shape, and the quality of this Captain Trotter's morality may be

estimated by the very conscientious objections he has to any person running into his debt. It often happens that a poor creature affects no sale to the amount of two shillings; and as all her subsistence may depend upon the sale of her stock, she is compelled to dispose of some article or other at probably far less than the cost price, in order to secure her stand. The Captain was never known to relax from his principles, and can see no reason why those who have been unfortunate should receive the least relief from his hands. This Captain courts the saints, and has appointed a number of inspectresses or spies, who walk about as part of the company to watch and report to him; and it is even rumoured that there are several loopholes through which he can peep around. It is not very long ago that some labourers, whom he had been exhorting to renounce beer, were nearly giving him an opportunity of swallowing an ad libitum quantity of his favourite beverage in a horse-pond; the ducking might have proved remarkably serviceable.

A country sculptor was ordered to engrave a tomb-stone, in which a disconsolate widower enumerated his wife's virtues, with this motto :A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband. But the artist finding the line too long, improved it.A virtuous woman is 5s. to her husband.

ROBINSON CRUSOE.

A respectable alderman of Oxford, Mr. Tawney, was so fascinated with Robinson Crusoe, that he used to read it through every year, and thought every part of it as true as holy writ. Unfortunately for him, a friend at last told him that it was little more than a fiction; that Robinson Crusoe was but a Scottish sailor of the name of Alexander Selkirk, whose plain story of his shipwreck on the island of Juan Fernandez, had been embellished and worked up into the narrative he so much admired, by an ingenious author, Daniel Defoe. "Your information," said the alderman, "may be very correct, but I wish you had withheld it; for in undeceiving me, you have deprived me of one of the greatest pleasures of my old age."

ON SUICIDE.

When fate in angry mood has frown'd, And gather'd all her storms around,

The sturdy koman's cry, The great, who'd be releas'd from pain, Falls on his sword, or opes a vein,

And bravely dares to die.

But know, beneath life's heavy load,
In sharp affliction's thorny road,

'Midst thousand ills that grieve, Where dangers threaten, cares infest, Where friends forsake and foes molest, 'Tis braver far to live.

A TOWN AND TOWNSMAN.

BY BOZ.

MUDFOG is a pleasant town-a remarkably pleasant town-situated in a charming hollow by the side of a river, from which river, Mudfog derives an agreeable scent of pitch, tar, coals, and ropeyarn, a roving population in oilskin hats, a pretty steady influx of drunken bargemen, and a great many other maritime advantages. There is a good deal of water about Mudfog, and yet is not exactly the sort of town for a watering-place, either. Water is a perverse sort of element at the best of times, and in Mudfog it is particularly so. In winter, it comes oozing down the streets, and tumbling over the fields,-nay, rushes into the very cellars and kitchens of the houses, with a lavish prodigality that might well be dispensed with; but in the hot

summer weather it will dry up, and turn green; and, although green is a very good colour in its way, especially in grass, still it certainly is not becoming to water; and it cannot be denied that the beauty of Mudfog is rather impaired, even by this trifling circumstance. Mudfog is a healthy place— very healthy;-damp, perhaps, but none the worse for that. It's quite a mistake to suppose that damp is unwholesome; plants thrive best in damp situations, and why shouldn't men? The inhabitants of Mudfog are unanimous in asserting that there exists not a finer race of people, on the face of the earth; here we have an indisputable and voracious contradiction of the vulgar error at once. So, admitting Mudfog to be damp, we distinctly state that it is salubrious.

The town of Mudfog is extremely picturesque. Limehouse and Ratcliffe Highway, are both something like it, but they give you a very faint idea of Mudfog. There are a great many more publichouses in Mudfog, more than in Ratcliffe Highway, and Limehouse, put together. The public buildings too, are very imposing. We consider the town-hall one of the finest specimens of shed architecture extant, it is a combination of the pigsty and tea-garden-box, orders; and the simplicity of its design is of surpassing beauty. The idea of placing a large window on one side of the door, and a small one on the other, is particularly happy. There is a fine bold doric beauty, too, about the padlock and scraper, which is strictly in keeping with the general effect.

In this room do the mayor and corporation of Mudfog assemble together, in solemn council for the public weal. Seated on the massive wooden benches, which, with the table in the centre, form the only furniture of the whitewashed apartment, the sage men of Mudfog spend hour after hour in grave deliberation. Here they settle at what hour of the night the public-houses shall be closed, at what hour of the morning they shall be permitted to open, how soon it shall be lawful for people to eat their dinner on church-days, and other great political questions; and sometimes, long after silence has fallen on the town, and the distant lights from the shops and houses have ceased to twinkle like far off stars, to the sight of the boatmen on the river, the illumination in the two unequal-sized windows of the town hall, warns the inhabitants of Mudfog that its little body of legislators, like a larger and better known body of the same genius, a great deal more noisy, and not a whit more profound, are patriotically dozing away in company, far into the night, for their country's good.

Among this knot of sage and learned men, no one was so eminently distinguished, during many years, for the quiet modesty of his appearance and demeanour, as Nicholas Tilrumble, the well known coal dealer. However exciting the subject of dis cussion, however accurating the tone of the debate, or however warm the personalities exchanged (and even in Mudfog we get personal sometimes,) Nicholas Tilrumble was always the same. To say truth, Nicholas, being an industrious man, and always up betimes, was apt to fall asleep when a debate began, and to remain asleep till it was over, when he would wake up very much refreshed, and give his vote with the greatest complacency. The fact was, that Nicholas Tilrumble, knowing that every body there, had made up his mind beforehand, considered the talking as just a long botheration about nothing at all; and to the present hour it remains a question, whether, on this point at all events,Nicholas Tilrumble, was not pretty near right. Bentley's Miscellany.

The Winters' Tale was very appropriately selected, we think, by the new manager of Coventgarden Theatre, as the introductory performance of one of the winter houses.

The Marquis of Waterford is said to be better. Who will assert that there is not room for inprovement!"