able: but swarms of musquitoes which proceeded from a well of stagnant water under the floor, only covered by a few loose boards, prevented the possibility of repose by their intolerable stinging.

"The following day I spent in endeavouring to devise some means of relief from my present painful condition, but was unable to conceive any practicable plan. Monday was spent in a similar lonely state of fruitless anxiety, but my spirits were considerably cheered on the following morning by the return of my companion, who now likewise became a sharer in Mr. V.'s bounty, and a fellow lodger in the same ruinous abode; for such it may justly be designated, being merely composed of some old wainscot, which had by time become so disunited as to admit free ingress, in every direction of the sun's rays."—p. 93-95.

Day after day elapsed without producing any relief; the kindness of the inhabitants had been entirely worn out, and the feelings of the adventurers were continually harrowed by witnessing the embarkation of more fortunate passengers for England. Gaunt poverty stared them in the face; some of them " became apparently regardless of their existence," when to their "infinite joy" they were taken on board a vessel on condition of working their passage home. "The sails," says the Venezuelan lieutenant, when he bids farewell to all the pomp and circumstance of the Patriot camp, "the sails were soon unfurled, and I, for the first time, found myself attached to a handspike, going my revolutions round the capstan, assisting in weighing the anchor; but however humble my situation, joy for my happy rescue predominated over every other feeling, and rendered it one of the most cheerful and pleasant moments of my life."

We have given rather a rapid sketch of the commencement, progress and termination of this disastrous expedition; but we think the public is really indebted to Mr. Hackett for the details which he has furnished.

We think no man of honourable feelings can wish to enrol his name in the undisciplined horde which is described in this Narrative, however warmly he may detest despotism; and however cordially he may wish for the melioration of South America. The contest can be managed by the parties themselves, and in their hands it should be left. The emancipation of this people cannot be achieved but by a long train of barbarities and cold-blooded slaughter, at which every feeling heart must shudder.

THE ADVERSARIA-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

Or "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," Collins in his memoirs of the 'Sidneys; Ballard in his account of learned Ladies; and almost every subsequent biographer, have afforded an interesting account. The following specimen of the elegant and forcible style of her Ladyship's prose, is extracted from her exordium to a very rare and estimable little volume which was published in the year 1600, under the title of a Discourse of Life and Death. Written in French by Phil. Mornay. Done in English by the Countesse of Pembroke.

"It seems to me strange, and a thing much to be marveiled, that the laborer to repose himselfe hasteneth as it were in the course of the sunne; that the mariner rowes with all force to attaine the port, and with a joyfull crie salutes the descried land; that the traveller is never quiet nor content, till he be at the end of his voyage; and that we, in the meane while, tied in this world to a perpetuall taske, tossed with continuall tempest, tyred with a rough and cumbersome way, cannot yet see the end of our labour but with griefe, nor behold our port but with teares, nor approach our home and quiet abode but with horrour and trembling. This life is but a Penelope's web, wherein we are always doing and undoing; a sea open to all winds, which, sometime within, sometime without, never cease to torment us; a wearie journey through extreme heats and colds, over high mountaines, steepe rockes, and theevish deserts. And so we terme it, in weaving at this web, in rowing at this oare, in passing this miserable way. Yet loe, when Death comes to end our work; when she stretcheth out her arms to pull us into the port: when after so many dangerous passages and lothsome lodgings, she would conduct us to our true home and resting-place: in steade of rejoycing at the end of our labour, of taking comfort at the sight of our land, of singing at the approch of our happie mansion; we would faine (who would beleeve it?) retake our worke in hand, we would again hoise saile to the wind, and willingly undertake our journey anew. No more then remember we our paines; our shipwrecks and dangers are forgotten: we feare no more the travailes nor the theeves. Contrariwise, we apprehend death as an extreame paine, we doubt it as a rocke, we flie it as a thiefe. We do as little children, who all the day complaine, and when the medicine is brought them, are no longer sicke; as they who all the weeke long runne up and downe the streetes with paine of the teeth, and seeing the barber comming to pull them out, feele no more paine. We

feare more the cure than the disease, the surgeon than the paine. We have more sense of the medicine's bitternesse, soone gone, than of a bitter languishing, long continued; more feeling of death, the end of our miseries, than the endlesse miserie of our life. We fear that we ought to hope for, and wish for that we ought to feare."

As a specimen of the devout poetry of former times the reader may peruse the following extracts which are made from a book entitled a misticall deuise of the spirituall and godly love betwene Christ the spouse and the Church or Congregation. Firste made by the wise prince of Soloman, and now newly set forth in verse by Jud Smith. Whereunto is annexed certeine other briefe stories. And also a Treatise of Prodigalitie, most fit and necessarie for to be read and marked of all estates, 1575. Imprinted at London by Henry Lirckham, and are to be solde at his shoppe, at the little northe doore of Paules, at the signe of the Black Boie. Small 8vo.

CHRISTE SPEAKETH TO THE CHURCHE.

"Come, wend unto my garden gay,

My sister and my spouse;

For I have gathered mirre with spice,
And other goodly bowes.

I mean to eat my honnye, and

My honny combe so sweete,

And I will drinke my wyne and milke,
For so it seemeth meete.

CHRISTE TO THE APOSTLES.

Eat now, my friends, do nothing spare,

But be of perfect cheare;

And drink with mirth, for you of me

Are pure beloved deare."

Mr. Warton, in his enumeration of the various versions of Solomon's Song made in the 16th century (Hist. Eng. Poetry, III. sect. xxvii.) does not notice the present; nor is it registered by Ames or Herbert. An address to the Christian reader is prefixed by John Wharton, a writer of poetry in those days of more piety than taste. And thus he begins:

"In perusing this little volume intitled "a misticall devise,” being requested by my frend thereunto, I did fynde such a pleasantness therein, that my hart rejoyced and gave du signes what pleasure and delight my minde of it conceived. For surely (gentle reader) if thou covit to heare any old bables, as I may terme them, or stale tales of Chauser, or to learne howe Acteon came by his horned head, if thy mynde be fixed to any such metamorphocall toyes, this booke is not apt nor fit for thy purpose. But if thou art contrarywise bent to hear, or to reade holsome documents, as it becometh all christians, then take this same: for thou shalt fynde it sweeter (as the prophet sayeth) than the honye or the honye combe. For Solomon had great delite in the makinge of these, to recreat and revyve his spirits, and called them by this name, Canticum Canticorum, whyche is to sayethe song of songes."

Patrons. When Ariosto presented his Orlando Furioso to the Cardinal D'Este, the patron demanded "where the d-l did you find all this nonsense?" Gibbon dedicated his Decline and Fall to the Duke of Queensbury. When he waited upon him with the second volume, (in quarto) the Peer exclaimed, “What, Mr. Gibbon, another big square book!"

Mr Knight, the author of " an Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste" frequently indulges in humorous illustrations, but not altogether in such as may be thought perfectly consistent with the dignity of a philosophical treatise. As an example take the following passage;

"I am aware that it would be no easy task to persuade a lover that the forms, upon which he dotes with such rapture, are not really beautiful, independent of the medium of affection, passion and appetite, through which he views them. But before he pronounces either the infidel or the sceptic guilty of blasphemy, against nature, let him take a mould from the lovely features or lovely bosom of this master-piece, of creation, and cast a plumpudding in it (an object by no means disgusting to most men's appetites), and, I think, he will no longer be in rapture with the form, whatever he may be with the substance."

The following verses translated from Montanebbi by professor Carlyle, contain a point that finds its way immediately to the heart, and warms it with the most pleasing sensations.

UPON VISITING A FRIEND.

Yes, I can boast a friend is mine

Whom all the virtues grace;
The dearest of a kindred line,
The noblest of our race.

A scion from his friendship sprung,
I planted in my breast-
How fondly to the soil it clung
Its blooming fruit confest.

Yet, by affection's touch inclin'd

To Selim when I'd go,
My Selim's house I never find,
My friend I never know.

For when I reach his welcome dome,
His kind attentions share,

I always find that I'm at home,

Another self is there.

A curious attempt at the sublime, with the bathos suddenly tacked to it, occurs in Dr. Mavor's account of Cook's Voyages:

"The wild rocks raised their lofty summits, till they were lost in the clouds, and the vallies lay covered with everlasting snow. Not a tree was to be seen, or a shrub even big enough to make a tooth-pick!"

It is finely said by a Persian writer" Cultivate the man who sits and converses with you, and by his gentle tones cheers and enlivens the lustre of your countenance, for such a friend is like a bag of musk; he carries about him the sweet perfume of cheerful intercourse."

Tom Paine.-Mr Yorke, who wrote Letters from Paris, in 1802 gives us an account of an interview which he had with Paine. After many attempts to find this second Catiline, this man " satis eloquentiæ sapientia parum," and hearing him every where execrated, he at last discovered that he lived at an American bookseller's, up two pair of stairs, in the Rue du Theatre Francais. A woman with some hesitation at his enquiry, at length said," He is taking a nap, but I'll go and wake him."

"In two minutes she returned, and ushered me into a little dirty room, containing a small wooden table and two chairs. "This," said she, "is