nor can

Wit; and, although he frequently has cause to repent of his mischievous yet diverting tricks, I fear that he never will cease from them, until he precipitates himself into some fatal error. Poor Tony! if there is a row, he must be concerned in it ;---if a hoax is to be played off upon some object of dislike, Tony is sure of being appointed head manager;--if an insult is to be offered to any person, the care and direction of it devolves upon Tony. He certainly is esteemed amongst his companions as the soul of fun, and the life of mirth; but this honour is purchased at a most exorbitant price. He is perpetually frightening his family out of their wits, by some ingenious contrivance or other. His brothers and sisters are alike the objects of his amusement, he always refrain from irritating the weak nerves of his mother, or the passionate temper of his father. It was but last winter, that, after having performed the part of a ghost for several nights with great satisfaction to himself, and consternation to the neighbourhood, some one, more courageous than the rest, aimed a gun at him, by means of which he received a tolerable sharp admonition in his leg. When at Eton, his propensity to mischief hurried him into an infinity of punishments and difficulties. He was a perpetual, though unwilling votary of the block; and was within an ace of expulsion, from sending a package to the Head Master, which upon examination was found to contain nothing more or less than a dead dog, and a score of brick-bats. His Dame also was a sufferer from several of his amusing, though dangerous, exploits. Not long ago, he was detected in distributing letters of invitation to the house of a rich citizen, and was compelled to make a most humble and degrading apology, that he might escape the punishment which hoaxers deserve. Another time, while crossing the Thames with his sisters, he attempted to terrify them by rocking the slender skiff in which they had embarked; but giving it rather too sudden a motion, he absolutely upset it. His folly involved the whole company in a

complete sousing, and most probably would have terminated fatally, had they not been in the vicinity of other boats. He had reason to expect a considerable legacy from a maiden aunt, whose particular favourite he was, until he committed murder upon the bodies of two cats, whom I suppose he considered as his rivals in her affections; and in addition to this crime (heinous indeed in the eyes of an antiquated maid!) he contrived to precipitate a couple of daws down the chimney of her parlour; which, besides throwing the poor woman into hysterics, dislodged a considerable quantity of soot from its receptacle, to the utter abolition of that purity and neatness which pervades the apartments of a maiden lady. But it is needless to extend the enumeration of these tricks any further. All that I can hope is, that he may escape any unfortunate accident from the effects of his folly a few years longer, when he may perhaps be induced to discontinue them, by the more sound reasonings of maturity.

A few more words shall conclude the objections of Michael Oakley. Let us all consider, before we enter upon the various pursuits of Wit, whether the object which we seek will repay us for the difficulties, the hazard, and the odium, which we must undergo in obtaining it. Let us observe the repulse which others meet with--the slender triumph which generally crowns their most ardent expectations. It is not necessary that wisdom and talent should be discovered in Wit alone: on the contrary, an outward show of it frequently reveals to us a shallow brain and an insufficiency of understanding, which it labours, though ineffectually, to conceal.

I cannot conclude this essay of Pope:

better than in the words

"Unhappy Wit, like most mistaken things,
Atones not for the envy which it brings,

In youth alone its empty praise we boast,

But soon the short-lived vanity is lost,

Then most our trouble still, when most admired,
And still, the more we give, the more required,
Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease,
Sure some to vex, but never all to please;
"Tis what the vicious fear; the virtuous shun;
By fools 't is hated, and by knaves undone."

HORE SUBFUSCE.

"Ibant obscuri solâ sub nocte per umbras."-EN. vi.

I.

COME not, dear thought of her I lost,
Amidst the cares of daily life;
Nor mingle with the vulture-host
Of self-reproach, or inward strife:

Nor come amidst the lighter joys,
Of youth and social feeling born;

But in the mind's half-slumbering mood,
When weary care retires to rest,

When all within is solitude,

Descend, dear visionary guest!

-Nor come, sweet shadow that thou art!
Amidst the hum and glare of day;

Thy gentle visits to my heart

Must never meet her peering ray:

-But on the solemn verge of night, When the great west is all on fire, And, setting like a rose of light,

The sun seems softly to retire ;

M. O.

Or when the pearly moon on high
Her sail of beauty has unfurl'd,
And sheds in silence from the sky

Her softer sunshine o'er a sleeping world:
Or in that hour scarce less divine,
When twilight slowly yields to day,
And towers, and walls, and temples shine
White with the sun's unrisen ray :

-When nature and the hour sublime Have wrought a curtain fit for thee, Come, daughter of departed time! Come, in the might of memory!

Come in the glory of the past,

The beauty which remembrance throws O'er all the scene behind us castOh burst my dark and dull repose!

*

II.

The buzzing night-fly round me play'd,
The hollow rain-drop patter'd nigh,
While on my couch at midnight laid,
I watch'd, and thought of Emily.

And now, as by the clouded beam,
I
pace these cloister'd walks along,
That name is still my fancy's theme,
Th' awakener of my lonely song.

I see thee still, my gentle friend,
Though far by time and fate estranged;
I mark thee turning, on me bend
That smile of playfulness unchanged.

Then, as the evening tapers shine,
Beside thy chair. I stand again,
Or on the well-known couch recline,
And listen to thy thrilling strain.

-Forget not him, once dearly known,

Whom now thine eyes no more must see;

Forget not him, who here alone,

'Mid night and silence, thinks of thee!

III.

'Tis silence-save that on mine ear
A bird's low note is trilling nigh;
So soft, it serves but to endear
The solemn hour's tranquillity.

Save that the winds of morning play,
In half-heard murmurs, round my brow;
Save the hoarse watch-dog's distant bay,
Or my own footsteps pacing low.

As through these courts (that, lighted here,
By the pale dawn, lie there in shade,)
My slow unvaried course I steer,

What visions rise-what thoughts invade!

-I think, my Emily, of thee!

I think of happy moments past; From our young days of amity Down to the hour we parted last; And those late meetings of delight, So few, so short, so simply sweet, They 've left behind a track as white As many a bliss more exquisite !

"Tis night; the welkin dimly lours;
The lattice flaps with sullen sound;
I hear at times the rustling showers,
'Mid the dull wind that moans around.