beck, to pause ere you commit them to the box at the grocer's bow-window, whereon the words "general post" are imprinted. Messieurs Truncheon and Gag are very great men where they are (many men are very great men in their own county), but, transplanted to the metropolis, I will wager a golden sovereign against one of those shining brass curtain-pins which I have observed to decorate the exterior of the brown-paper parcels in your shop-window in Monumentyard, that, in the shifting of a scene, Mr. Truncheon will sink down from Macbeth to Donalbain, and Mr. Gag will exchange Jemmy Jumps in the Farmer for Dubbs in the Wags of Windsor. On returning to the Roebuck to sleep, the chambermaid (contracted by the waiter to chammaid) has made her appearance with your bed-candle. You have found her to possess one of those faces which Hogarth loved to paint, pert, pale, pugnacious: free from all Salvator Rosa traits of sublimity : still it was feminine; and if you had met it on the plains which trench upon Cape Coast Castle, where white women are searce, you possibly might have reverenced it. Euclid has many assumed propositions, but not one more undeniable than that which I am now about to lay down, namely, that on entering your bed you have kept as quiet upon your back as the knight in Westminster Abbey who reposes upon a marble mattress, not a hundred miles from Poets' Corner. One false move will have proved your ruin: the upper sheet will have burst its cerements, and for the whole of the ensuing night nothing but a rough blanket will have been left your bed to brag of Your uneasy slumber was broken by a rattle at your chamber-door, at half-past four, and a shrill exclamation of "Coach is ready, sir," intended for the man who sleeps in No. 6; at five o'clock you were again aroused by a heavy clump, and another shrill cry of " Your boots, sir," meant for the Birmingham rider, who reposes in No. 8; and at a quarter past six, a fat chirping sparrow gave you a twit, twit, twit, that kept you awake until it was time to arise. I know that sparrow of old. When absent from London, he never gives me a moment's quiet: he haunts me, when in quest of a mouthful of country air, as regularly, every morning at five, as the old woman in a box did him who was in quest of the talisman of Oromanes. By the time of despatching your breakfast on the ensuing morning, Joshua, I know very well, though you may be rather shy of owning it, that you began to be heartily sick of your rural scheme, insomuch so, that taking advantage of the return coach to London, you were in seven hours and a half re-deposited with your portmanteau at the Elephant and Castle. A da capo most devoutly to be wished by ninety-nine traders out of a hundred. Here then, Joshua, I find you, notwithstanding all the inducements to emigrate which the absence of stair-carpets and the closing of your front-windows in Guildford-street (your wife's doing) can hold forth; and here you will probably, remain fashionably incog; taking your exercise in the dusk up and down the interior steps of "London's column," which still retains its inscription malgré Mr. Charles Butler. I am aware that your wife is on a visit to her father at Haminersmith: and you tell me that you neither like your wife's father nor Hammersmith. Herein, Joshua, you are far from singular. Show me any man who likes either his wife's father or Hammersmith, and I will show you a tortoise-shell tom-cat! THE CITIES OF THE PLAINA, OMNA The sun's broad disk gleam'd of a sulphurous hue, He sees them on the distant plain appear And round them like a garment lies their doon, en ♬ Gathering in force and reddening as they roll'd, The Patriarch wept that awful sight to see,- And 'twas not impious he should shed a tear, And guide him to some country where might rest ་་་ A 曾 For disobedience stricken, saw and died, Ages a stony monument she stood A Of Heaven's fierce wrath and Sodom's burning Hood Close at the bound where in their vengeful play play9 96T The fiery waves shook their red foam away binis bil heard Heaven's messenger declare The coming wreck, and warn him to beware, And ere the dawn, the fatal dawn was n these his little family, Bid him arouse For Lot was nigh, A DUE JOI) lee at PRĂ To Zoar escape, and find d within its walls 82 bus geme O, when that realm like one wide furnace burn'd, j{" And wall and column, in the flame o'erturn'djamem thT Melted like drossy ore, and seethed, and broke ontañoч In billowy flame and jets of wreathing smoke,ea scT That with commotion Heaven's high arch divide, 9911 F Rolling their volumes dense from side to side 12690) } And reddening earth's dark canopy-where then Lay there a refuge for unhappy men, Th 1 Who heard not, thought not, till the moment came, And shrivelled their parch'd lungs, and from their veins As fuel flung within a furnace clear. No shriek was ever heard, they had no space Molten with street and dwelling quench'd in fire! A universe of ruin! schemes of ill re still wo A And crime were dead, and vain desires were s i And youth and age, the children and the sires. 2 ba Within a marble turret's ponderous wall, adT A monument of strength, massy and tall, A few lone inmates mark'd the livid hail With the dry corpse clasp'd in convulsion fast Within the waste where ruin'd Sodom lay, Or rather where it flourish'd yesterday, Now floating dross upon the burning tideOne massy building long the assault defied; Above the flame its walls with redness glow'd Intensely horrible, then in lava flow'd. It was the palace of the king, replete With every empty pomp that fools call'd great, Or rather deem'd to be so, custom led, Putting vile gauds and show in reason's stead: With all that profligacy e'er could dream To pamper royal vice in pleasure's name; With every tawdry bauble that could kill The weary time, or toy to please the will. There gold and purple robes of tints that vied With the bright hues of glorious eventide, Wastefully worn, in day's full splendour shone, For a delighted king to gaze upon, And talk of, praise, or in procession vain Admire while glittering in the courtiers' train., That morn the swollen, weak, and boastful thing, Most imbecile in soul, an eastern king, Slumber'd amid his high magnificence, Drunken with folly and the joys of sense: That morn on silken couches lay the fair, The beautiful, the young, the amorous pair, Satiate in love's fruition-there the maid Of jetty tresses, train'd desire to aid By luscious dances at the timbrel's sound; And there the slave with golden cincture bound, That bore the perfumed censer, or that fanned To cheat mankind upon the roll of fame! And none were left to mourn them-those who knew And might perchance have wept them, perish'd too; Annull'd, annihilated, drown'd'in fire, Whelm'd in the storm of God's avenging ire! They are, and they are not! short history That blotted Nature from creation's frame |