ever, its bias is generally towards melancholy rather than mirthful topics. The memory, too, loves to fasten upon subjects of regret; and, so long as with a gentle cruelty it presents them through a softening medium, we are pleased with retracing our sorrows, and reviving our painful recollections. In such a disposition, I entered last night the chesnut grove of my neighbour Blunt. The moon was in its first ter, and bright enough to show

quar

"the last smile
Of Autumn hanging o'er the yellow woods."

There is something in this departure of the year that particularly endears to us the beauties and bounties of nature, and even touches our sensibility. We feel towards it as towards a friend at the moment of separation, to whose kindnesses we have been but imperfectly sensible, and of whose disposition to promote our welfare we have been but little studious to profit. We that are old, and drawing towards that period when the seasons and their changes shall be no more, feel in a superior degree this disposition to cling to this remnant of the year, and love to draw from the skirt of the goddess's mantle what virtue it contains.

Some of us have personal and peculiar ties which attach us to particular moments of the year, recollections and associations bred in the mind out of the warm propensities, glowing enjoyments, and tender connections of youth; after-tastes of pleasure, which exceed the positive relish that remains; shadows of long-departed delights, that in the decay of life surpass the substance of our actual pleasures. The stillness of the night, and the peaceful solemnity of my friend's groves, strongly revived in my mind the remembrance of the last walk I ever took with

VOL. XLIV.

I

poor Eugenio. When once the idea had fastened itself, every little circumstance or incident added strength to my recollection. The grey confusion in which every thing was wrapped, the pensive rustling of the foliage, the boughs half stripped of their leaves, and the moon looking through the breaches, and disclosing the waste of the declining year, were so many characteristic circumstances which helped to build up in my mind a complete remembrance of that evening, and to give me a perfecter image of my long-lost friend. As I walked along, a leaf was blown into my bosom, when instantly I recollected that the same circumstance had happened to Eugenio, and could not forbear repeating some little stanzas which he wrote that evening upon the spot, on the cover of my pocket-book.

"Pale, wither'd wand'rer, seek not here
A refuge from the ruthless sky:
This breast affords no happier cheer
Than the rude blighting breeze you fly.

Cold is the atmosphere of grief,

When storms assail the barren breast;
Go, then, poor exile, seek relief

In bosoms where the heart has rest;

Or fall upon th' oblivious ground,

Where silent sorrows buried lie;
There rest is surely to be found,

Or what, alas! to hope have I?
Where, sepulchred in peace, repose,
In yonder field, the village dead,
Go, seek a shelter among those

Who all their mortal tears have shed,

But if thou com'st a Sibyl's leaf,

Such as did erst high truths declare,
To tell me soon shall end my grief,
I bless the omen that you bear:

For sure you tell me that my woe

An end like thine at length shall have;
That wan, like thee, and wasted so,
I sink to the forgetful grave.

Then come, thou messenger of peace!

Come, lodge within this barren breast,
And lie there till we both shall cease
To seek in vain for nature's rest."

66

I remember well, that soon after writing in my pocket-book this little poem, in which there is an impression of my friend above what any picture could have preserved for me, we walked up to a little mound at the end of his vista, where at that time there grew a cypress tree of his own planting. He stopped me here, and taking me by the hand, as near as I can recollect them, his words were as follows:Mr. Olive-branch, I feel that after all the resistance I can make, and after all the succours afforded me by religion and philosophy, my frame is sinking fast under my mental sufferings. The dear Amelia, since all our hopes have tumbled to the ground, has vowed perpetual celibacy, and supports her sorrows nobly. Alas! my mind was too much broken to withstand this fresh assault. Providence, for salutary ends, afflicts me with more sorrow than I have a constitution framed to endure: but his voice speaks within me, and assures me I shall soon be released. Nature is giving way fast, and I feel my strength going, without a wish to renew it. When no resource or vigour is left, nothing to which hope can attach, you well know what a vain exertion of friendship it is, to endeavour at restoring to the mind its impulse and its action; therefore use no arguments with me to raise my spirits. I am going, my dear friend, to the house of peace, and I draw towards the end of my life with cheerfulness. To tell thee the

mouth as to a refuge or a relaxation! Sir, let us now be told no more of the infamy of the rope-dancer?'When he had ended, I could not help whispering sir J. B. Boswell, How wonderfully does our friend extricate himself out of difficulties! He is like quicksilver try to grasp him in your hand, and he makes his escape between every finger.' This image I afterwards ventured to mention to our great Moralist and Lexicographer, saying, May not I flatter myself, sir, that it was a passable metaphor?' — Johnson. Why, yes, sir.'"

·

I don't know that I can fill up my sheet better than by laying the following curious letters before the public.

Jurare in verba magistri.---
-----To swear by rule.-----

"To Doctor Olive-branch.

"Dear parson,

"Curse me, old boy, if I don't like your papers confoundedly, and think them almost as good a lounge as the Jockey-Club, or the Carlton-house Magazine. As you pass for a devilish moral fellow, and all that, I wish you would give us a d-ned who spunky paper against the vulgar sons of take upon them to use the oaths of us fellows of fashion. It is a cursed thing (now is it not?) that we can't keep a new execration among us for a week, before it gets into the d-ned throats of the canaille. Judge for yourself:-I heard my hosier's shop-boy utter a curse yesterday, which cost me and my valet three days in composing, and which was as good as

new, I never having sported it above six times, and that only in the very best and most select company. Do, dear doctor, tell these how d-ned immoral this is. Think of some method to prevent it, and you'll oblige the whole world of fashion, amongst whom is,

"Yours infernally,

"CROSS CURRIcle.

"P.S. Excuse errors. --mn me if I have written so much at one sitting since I left Eton."

To save the reader the trouble of deciphering, I have in many places corrected for him the orthography of the following epistle.

"To the Rev. Dr. Simon Olive-branch.

Honered doctor,

"I lives as coachman at squire Wealthy's in Yorkshire. Master takes in your papers, but we always has 'um first in the sarvants' hall. As I reads to the rest, they all desires me to send their complaints to you in the lump, hoping as you will try your hand at the curing an 'um. Last week, a nephew of master's, one of your fine men of London, comed here wisiting. To be sure he drove into the court-yard, four in hand, quite natural, and as if he had been a coachman born; but when he got out of his phaeton, I could not for the life an me help laughing at im his hair was cropt like little John's the postillion; he had on a little cote, that reached but half way down his thighs, made as broad behind as old Moses Modus's, the parish school-master, and the cape dangling down his back, as if he had been half asleep when he was dressing.-Since he came