The quick succession of movements is indicated by an equally rapid motion of the short syllables; and in the last line Gill rolls with a greater sprightliness and vivacity than even the stone of Sisyphus.

Having expatiated so largely on its particular merits, let us conclude by a brief review of its most prominent beauties. The subject is the fall of men, — a subject, high, interesting, worthy of a poet; the heroes, men who do not commit a single fault, and whose misfortunes are to be imputed, not to indiscretion, but to destiny. To the illustration of the subject, every part of the poem conduces. Attention is neither wearied by multiplicity of trivial incidents, nor distracted by frequency of digression. The poet prudently clipped the wings of imagination, and repressed the extravagance of metaphorical decoration. All is simple, plain, consistent. The moral, too, that part without which poetry is useless sound, has not escaped the view of the poet. When we behold two young men, who, but a short moment before, stood up in all the pride of health, suddenly falling down a hill, how must we lament the instability of all things!

WROTE some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,

And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer,
I laugh'd as I would die;
Albeit, in the general way,
A sober man am I.

I call'd my servant, and he came:
How kind it was of him,
To mind a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limb!

"These to the printer," I exclaim'd,
And, in my humourous way,
I added, (as a trifling jest,)

"There'll be the devil to pay."

He took the paper, and I watch'd,
And saw him peep within;

At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.

He read the next; the grin grew broad,
And shot from ear to ear;

He read the third; a chuckling noise
I now began to hear.

The fourth; he broke into a roar;
The fifth, his waistband split;
The sixth, he burst five buttons off,
And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watch'd that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.

GIBBON'S "DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE."

In the following extracts from the Memoirs of his Life and Writings, the historian relates the first conception, the commencement, and the completion, of his great work:

T was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind. But my

original plan was circumscribed to the decay of the city rather than of the empire: and, though my reading and reflections began to point towards that object, some years elapsed, and several avocations intervened, before I was seriously engaged in the execution of that laborious work.

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No sooner was I settled in my house and library, than I undertook the composition of the first volume of my History. At the outset all was dark and doubtful; even the title of the work, the true æra of the Decline and Fall of the Empire, the limits of the introduction, the division of the chapters, and the order of the narrative; and I was often tempted to cast away the labour of seven years. The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation: three times did I compose the first chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerably satisfied with their effect. In the remainder of the way I advanced with a more equal and easy pace; but the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters have been reduced by three successive revisals, from a large volume to their present size, and they might still be compressed, without any loss of facts or sentiments. An opposite fault may be imputed to the concise and superficial narrative of the first reigns from Commodus to Alex

ander; a fault of which I have never heard, except from Mr. Hume in his last journey to London. Such an oracle might have been consulted and obeyed with rational devotion; but I was soon disgusted with the modest practice of reading the manuscript to my friends. Of such friends, some will praise from politeness, and some will criticise from vanity. The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; no one has so deeply meditated on the subject, no one is so sincerely interested in the event.

I have presumed to mark the moment of conception: I shall now commemorate the hour of my final deliverance. It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future date of my History,