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Jessy, with her prettiness, and her title, and her fopperies, was the very thing to be vain of the very thing to visit for a day;-but Agnes, and the cousin whose noble character and splendid talents so well deserved her, made the pride and the happiness of his home.

MY MOTHER'S GRAVE.

O rise and sit in soft attire-
Wait but to know my soul's desire!
I'd call thee back to days of strife,
To wrap my soul around thy life!
Ask thou this heart for monument,
And mine shall be a large content.

A crown of brightest stars to thee!
How did thy spirit wait for me,
And nurse thy waning light, in faith
That I would stand 'twixt thee and death,
Then tarry on thy bowing shore,

Till I have ask'd thy sorrows o'er.

I came not-and I cry to save
Thy life from out th' oblivious grave,
One day ;-that I may well declare,
How I have thought of all thy care:
And love thee more than I have done;
And make thy day with gladness run.

I'd tell thee where my youth hath been;
Of perils past-of glories seen:

I'd speak of all my youth hath done

And ask of things, to choose and shun;
And smile at all thy needless fears,

But bow before thy solemn tears.

Come, walk with me, and see fair earth,
The ways of men, and join their mirth!-
Sleep on-for mirth is now a jest ;-
Nor dare I call thee from thy rest :-
Well hast thou done thy worldly task,
Thy mouth hath nought of me to ask!

Men wonder till I pass away-
They think not but of useless clay :
Alas! for age, this memory!

But I have other thoughts of thee;
And I would wade thy dusty grave,
To kiss the head I cannot save.

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HAPPY is England! I could be content,
To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown
Through its tall woods with high romances blent;
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment,

For skies Italian, and an inward groan,

To get upon an Alp as on a throne,

And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England! sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me,
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging;
Yet do I often warmly burn to see

Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters!

"Murtzoufle; a Tragedy: with other Poems. By Thomas Aird, Edin. 1826," 8vo.

THE LOTTERY TICKET.*

THAT Once fruitful source of pleasing although delusive hopes, the Lottery, is now no more. A despotic act of parliament has given the death-blow to thousands of happy pictures of the imagination, that were hitherto wont to amuse, for a time at least, those earnest suitors of Fortune, who, if they did not actually enjoy her smiles, flattered themselves that they were on the high road to her favours. A stern moralist, indeed, may expatiate on the baneful influence of Lotteries, not only as a species of gambling, but as tending to cherish expectations, which, in a fearful majority of cases, must terminate in disappointment. Yet the very same persons scruple not to hold out as incentives to good conduct examples of success, that must create hopes equally deceptive. The apprentice is taught to cherish the idea, that however humble his fortune, he may one day become Lord Mayor; the midshipman is excited to emulation by the example of Nelson, and told that he ought not to despair of rising to the highest honours in his profession; and whatever be the career in which the youthful adventurer starts for fortune or for fame, it is considered not merely pardonable, but meritorious in him, to propose to himself the attainment of the greatest prize it has to bestow. There is a Russian proverb which says, 'He is a bad soldier that does not expect to become a general;' yet were a whole army to consist of individuals combining the talents of an Alexander, a Cæsar, and a Napoleon, it would be as impossible that all should be commanders, as that in a Lottery every speculator should gain the grand prize.

But, the "Lucky Corner" is gone; or, rather, though the identical house stands there yet, it no longer conjures up in the passersby, dreams of sudden affluence, and of hoards of gold. There, at the forked triple way, Fortune seemed with open arms to invite all who approached the spot, pointing with one hand to the Bank, and with the other to the wealthy Lombard land. The Lottery, too, whatever be alleged against it in other respects, must be admitted to have frequently furnished an expedient to the novelist and dramatist, and enabled them to extricate a hero from poverty and raise him at once to affluence, without killing a distant relative, or bringing an old uncle from India. A Lottery ticket has, also, without doubt, given rise to many a strange incident, and it is hoped that the one I am now about to relate will not be found wholly unamusing.

* From The Literary Souvenir,' for 1831.

Mr Richard Fogrum, or, as his old acquaintance would more familiarly than respectfully designate him, Dick Fogrum, or, as he was sometimes styled on the superscription of a letter from a tradesman or poor relation, Richard Fogrum, Esq., had for some years retired from business, although he had not yet passed what is called the middle age; and, turning his back on his shop, where ne had made, if not a considerable fortune, at least handsome competency, rented a small house at Hackney, or, as he was pleased to term it, in the country. His establishment united a due attention to comfort, with economy and prudence. Beside a kitchen maid and an occasional charwoman or errand boy, Mr Fogrum possessed, in the person of the trusty Sally Sadlins, an excellent superintendent of his little menage. Sally was not exactly gouvernante, or housekeeper, at least she assumed none of the dignity attached to such a post; she seemed indeed hardly to have a will or opinion of her own, but had so insensibly accommodated herself to her employer's ways and humours, that by degrees the apparent distance between master and servant diminished, and as Sally, though far from talkative herself, was a good listener, Mr Fogrum began to find a pleasure in relating to her all the little news and anecdotes he usually picked up in his daily walk.

Let it not, however, be supposed that there was anything equivocal in the kind of unconscious courtesy which existed between these two personages; a single glance at Sally would have convinced the most ingenious fabricator of scandal, and dealer in inuendoes, that here there was no foundation on which to build even the slightest surmise of the kind, for both Sally's person and face were to her a shield that would have rebutted any notion of the sort. Alas! that Nature, so extolled by every poet for her impartiality, should be at times so capricious in her favours, and bestow her gifts so grudgingly, even on those whose very sex entitles them to be considered fair! "Kind goddess," as Will of Avon styles thee, surely thou didst in this instance, behave most unfairly, bestowing on Sally Sadlins an elevation of figure that, had she been of the other sex, might have raised her to the rank of a corporal of grenadiers. Yet, if thou gavest her an aspiring stature, thou gavest her no aspiring thoughts; and if thou didst deny to her softness of person, fortunately for her peace, thou didst not gift her with the least susceptibility of heart. If Sally was not loveable, there was no womar. on earth who could possibly have regretted it less. deed, I may safely aver, the idea of love never for an instant entered her head, much less had a single twinge of it ever touched her heart. She had heard people talk of love; and she supposedif indeed she ever bestowed a thought on the subject--that there

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