Unicus, unicè dilectus,

Qui floris ritu succisus est semihiantis,
Aprilis die septimo,

1780, Æt. 10.

Care, vale! Sed non æternum, care, valeto!
Namque iterum tecum, sim modò dignus, ero.
Tum nihil amplexus poterit divellere nostros,
Nec tu marcesces, nec lacrymabor ego.

TRANSLATION.

FAREWELL!" But not for ever," Hope replies,
Trace but his steps and meet him in the skies!
There nothing shall renew our parting pain,

Thou shalt not wither, nor I

weep again.

A RIDDLE.

I AM just two and two, I am warm, I am cold,
And the parent of numbers that cannot be told.
I am lawful, unlawful-a duty, a fault,

I am often sold dear, good for nothing when bought;
An extraordinary boon, and a matter of course,
And yielded with pleasure when taken by force.

ANSWER.

FROM THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, VOL. LXXVI. P. 1224.

A RIDDLE by Cowper

Made me swear like a trooper;

But

my anger, alas! was in vain; For remembering the bliss

Of beauty's soft Kiss,

I now long for such riddles again.

J. T.

IN SEDITIONEM HORRENDAM,

CORRUPTELIS GALLICIS, UT FERTUR, LONDINI NUPER EXORTAM.

PERFIDA, crudelis, victa et lymphata furore,
Non armis, laurum Gallia fraude petit.
Venalem pretio plebem conducit, et urit
Undique privatas patriciasque domos.
Nequicquam conata suâ, fœdissima sperat

Posse tamen nostrâ nos superare manu.

Gallia, vana struis! Precibus nunc utere! Vinces,
Nam mites timidis supplicibusque sumus.

TRANSLATION.

FALSE, cruel, disappointed, stung to the heart,
France quits the warrior's for the assassin's part,
To dirty hands a dirty bribe conveys,

Bids the low street and lofty palace blaze.
Her sons, too weak to vanquish us alone,
She hires the worst and basest of our own.
Kneel, France! a suppliant conquers us with ease,
We always spare a coward on his knees.

COWPER had sinn'd with some excuse,
If, bound in rhyming tethers,
He had committed this abuse

Of changing ewes for wethers1;

I have heard about my wether mutton from various quarters. It was a blunder hardly pardonable in a man who has lived amid fields and meadows, grazed by sheep, almost these thirty years. I have accordingly satirized myself in two stanzas

But, male for female is a trope,

Or rather bold misnomer,

That would have startled even Pope,
When he translated Homer.

STANZAS

SUBJOINED TO THE YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY OF THE PARISH OF ALL-SAINTS, NORTHAMPTON 1,

ANNO DOMINI 1787.

Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,

Regumque turres.

HORACE.

Pale Death with equal foot strikes wide the door
Of royal halls and hovels of the poor.

WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run

The Nen's barge-laden wave,

All these, life's rambling journey done,
Have found their home, the grave.

Was man (frail always) made more frail
Than in foregoing years?

Did famine or did plague prevail,

That so much death appears?

which I composed last night, while I lay awake, tormented with pain, and well dosed with laudanum. If you find them not very brilliant, therefore, you will know how to account for it.Letter to Joseph Hill, April 15, 1792.

1 Composed for John Cox, parish clerk of Northampton.

No; these were vigorous as their sires,
Nor plague nor famine came;
This annual tribute Death requires,
And never waives his claim.

Like crowded forest-trees we stand,
And some are mark'd to fall;
The axe will smite at God's command,
And soon shall smite us all.

Green as the bay tree, ever green,
With its new foliage on,

The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen,
I pass'd, and they were gone.

Read, ye that run, the aweful truth
With which I charge my page!
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.

No present health can health insure
For yet an hour to come;
No medicine, though it oft can cure,
Can always balk the tomb.

And oh! that humble as my lot,

And scorn'd as is my strain,

These truths, though known, too much forgot, I may not teach in vain.

So prays your Clerk with all his heart,

And, ere he quits the pen,

Begs you for once to take his part,

And answer all-Amen!

Improve the present hour, for all beside
Is a mere feather on a torrent's tide.

COULD I, from Heaven inspired, as sure presage
To whom the rising year shall prove his last,
As I can number in my punctual page,
And item down the victims of the past;

How each would trembling wait the mournful sheet
On which the press might stamp him next to die;
And, reading here his sentence, how replete

With anxious meaning, heavenward turn his eye! Time then would seem more precious than the joys In which he sports away the treasure now; And prayer more seasonable than the noise Of drunkards, or the music-drawing bow. Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink

Of this world's hazardous and headlong shore, Forced to a pause, would feel it good to think, Told that his setting sun must rise no more.

Ah self-deceived! Could I prophetic say

Who next is fated, and who next to fall, The rest might then seem privileged to play; But, naming none, the Voice now speaks to all.