POETICAL FLATTERY.

IN a poem, addressed to Queen Isabel, of Castille, in the Cancioneiro of Resende, there is an exquisite specimen of prophane flattery in this conceit,-that had she been living in the days of the Virgin Mary, Christ would have chosen her in preference to be his mother.

Boileau, in his "Ode on Namur," is adulatory enough to turn a feather into a star. Such incense was enough to turn Lewis the Fourteenth's head. These are Boileau's words:“Il a fait un astre de la plume blanche que le roy porte ordinairement à son chapeau, et qui est en effet une espece de comete, fatale à nos ennemis."

Dr. Donne paid the Countess of Bedford the most violent homage in his poems. (p. 82.)

66 Leaving that busie praise, and all appeale

To higher courts, senses decree is true;
The mine, the magazine, the common-weale,
The story of beauty, in Twickham * is, and you,
Who hath seen one, would both, as who had bin
In Paradise would seek the cherubim."

* The Countess had great taste in gardening.

PATRONAGE OF POETS.

STRATONICE, Queen of Seleucus, had not one hair upon her head; yet, notwithstanding, gave six hundred crowns to a poet who had celebrated her in his verse, and sung that her hair had the tincture of the marigold. ("Caussin's Holy Court.") Very rarely do poets, to whom the use of fiction is allowed, fare so well. Stratonice must have been a woman of taste!

Never was such a patron as Madame Geoffrin to those poets who sung her praises. She was so particularly nice in her taste, that she complimented every such author with a new pair of velvet breeches as a christmas-box! It was calculated by one of her own coterie, that no less than four thousand pair of velvet breeches were worn out in the poetical service of that lady, who was resolved, at least, that the sons of Parnassus should never be sans culottes.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

LUIS DE LEON, a Spanish poet, has left us these lines on the real presence, which are well

worthy of preservation:→→→

"If this we see be bread, how can it last,
So constantly consum'd, yet always here?
If this be God, then how can it appear
Bread to the eye, and seem bread to the taste?
If bread, why is it worshipp'd by the baker?
If God, can such a space a God comprise?
If bread, how is it, it confounds the wise?
If God, how is it that we eat our Maker?
If bread, what good can such a morsel do?
If God, how is it we divide it so ?

If bread, such saving virtue could it give?

If God, how can I see and touch it thus ?

If bread, how could it come from heav'n to us?
If God, how can I look at it and live ?"

WHIG AND TORY.

JACOB TONSON, Dryden's bookseller, was a whig, while the poet was a jacobite. When Dryden had nearly completed his translation of Virgil, it was the bookseller's wish, and that of several of Dryden's friends, that the book should be dedicated to King William: this, however, the poet strenuously refused. The bookseller, however, who had as much veneration for William as Dryden had for James, finding he could not have the dedication he wished, contrived, on re-touching the plate, to have Æneas delineated with a hooked nose,

that he might resemble his favourite prince. This ingenious device of Tonson's occasioned Dryden to insert the following epigram in the next edition of his "Virgil:"

"Old Jacob, by deep judgment sway'd
To please the wise beholders,

Has plac'd old Nassau's hook-nos'd head'
On poor Æneas' shoulders.

To make the parallel hold tack,
Methinks there's little lacking;
One took his father pick-a-back,
And t' other sent him packing."

DR. YOUNG..

"A LITTLE after Dr. Young had published hisUniversal Passion,' the Duke of Wharton made him a present of two thousand pounds for it. When a friend of the Duke's, who was surprised at the largeness of the present, cried out, on hearing it, 'What! two thousand pounds for a poem?' The Duke smiled, and said, 'It was the best bargain he ever made in his life, for it was fairly worth four thousand.'

"When the Doctor was deeply engaged in writing one of his tragedies, that nobleman made him a very different kind of present.

He procured a human skull, fixed a candle in it, and gave it to the Doctor, as the most proper lamp for him to write tragedy by."

SFENCE.

THE SATIRIST REWARDED.

SEWARD states, that "At one of those disgraces to good breeding and good conduct, called watering-places, in the country, a lady, a few years ago, had a daughter satirized by a miserable poetaster of the place. She came to him soon afterwards, with a horse-whip in her hand, as he was sitting at dinner at a public table, and laid it over his shoulders very handsomely. This, my good friend,' said she, 'is for the first offence; if you choose to repeat it, you may be assured, you shall have a double portion of the wholesome discipline.' The bard took to his heels as fast as he could, and quitted the place soon afterwards, leaving the innocence of the young, the beautiful, and the witty, untainted by the slander of folly and malignity."

66 THE ORDINARY OF CHRISTIAN MEN."

As the contents of this "Ordinary" seem to