-thou wilt certainly one day murder me! Every time I go to bed, I pray that I may not perish in my sins, when thou again art as thou art now! when I am nothing to thee!

She spoke in so soft, so desponding a tone, and yet so resigned to her fate with him, that he was moved to tears by her confused words and frightened appearance.

Oh thou, my Heavenly Father! sighed he then, and stood with clasped hands; till at length he clasped his terrified wife, who could not comprehend him, who felt so patient, and so completely in his power, that she would not even scream, or call for help, if he should-Oh! thou Heavenly Father!-till at length he clasped her in his arms, and felt her glowing on his cheek.

297.-A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.

MAY the Babylonish curse

CHARLES LAMB.

Straight confound my stammering verse,

If I can a passage see
In this word-perplexity,
Or a fit expression find,

Or a language to my mind

(Still the phrase is wide or scant,)

To take leave of thee, Great Plant!

Or in any terms relate

Half my love, or half my hate:

For I hate, yet love thee so,

That, whichever thing I show,

The plain truth would seem to be
A constrained hyperbole,

And the passion to proceed

More from a mistress than a weed.

Sooty retainer to the vine,
Bacchus' black servant, negro fine;

Sorcerer, that mak'st us dote upon
Thy begrimed complexion,
And, for thy pernicious sake,
More and greater oaths to break
Than reclaimed lovers take

'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay
Much too in the female way,

While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath
Faster than kisses, or than death.

Thou in such a cloud dost bind us,

That our worst foes cannot find us,

And ill fortune, that would thwart us,

Shoots at rovers, shooting at us;

While each man, through thy height'ning stream,

Does like a smoking Etna seem,

And all about us does express,
(Fancy and wit in richest dress,)
A Sicilian fruitfulness.

Thou through such a mist dost show us,
That our best friends do not know us,
And, for those allowed features,
Due to reasonable creatures.

Liken'st us to fell chimeras,
Monsters that, who see us, fear us:
Worse than Cerberus or Gorgon,
Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion.

Bacchus we know, and we allow
His tipsy rites. But what art thou,
That but by reflex canst show
What his deity can do,

As the false Egyptain spell

Aped the true Hebrew miracle?
Some few vapors thou mayst raise,

The weak brain may serve to amaze,
But to the reins and nobler heart,

Canst nor life nor heat impart.

Brother of Bacchus, later born,
The old world was sure forlorn,
Wanting thee, that aidest more
The god's victories than before
All his panthers, and the brawls
Of. his piping Bacchanals.
These, as stale, we disallow,

Or judge of thee meant: only thou
His true Indian conquest art;
And, for ivy round his dart,
The reformed god now weaves
A finer thyrsus of thy leaves.

Scent to match thy rich perfume
Chemic art did ne'er presume;
Through her quaint alembic strain,
None so sov'reign to the brain:
Nature, that did in thee excel,
Framed again no second smell.
Roses, violets, but toys

For the smaller sort of boys,
Or for greener damsels meant ;
Thou art the only manly scent.

Stinking'st of the stinking kind,

Filth of the mouth, and fog of the mind,

Africa, that brags her foison,

Breeds no such prodigious poison;

Henbane, nightshade, both together,

Hemlock, aconite

Nay, rather,

Plant divine, of rarest virtue;

Blisters on the tongue would hurt you.

'Twas but in a sort I blamed thee; None e'er prospered who defamed thee;

Irony all, and feigned abuse,

Such as perplexed lovers use

At a need, when, in despair
To paint forth their fairest fair,
Or in part but to express
That exceeding comeliness
Which their fancies doth so strike,
They borrow language of dislike;
And, instead of Dearest Miss,
Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss,
And those forms of old admiring,
Call her Cockatrice and Siren,
Basilisk, and all that's evil,
Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil,
Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamoor,
Monkey, Ape, and twenty more;
Friendly Trait'ress, loving Foe-
Not that she is truly so,

But no other way they know
A contentment to express,
Borders so upon excess,
That they do not rightly wot
Whether it be pain or not.

Or, as men, constrained to part
With what's nearest to their heart,
While their sorrow 's at the height,
Lose discrimination quite,

And their hasty wrath let fall,
To appease their frantic gall,
On the darling thing whatever,
Whence they feel it death to sever,
Though it be, as they, perforce,
Guiltless of the sad divorce.

For I must (nor let it grieve thee,

Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee; For thy sake, Tobacco, I

Would do anything but die,

And but seek to extend my days

Long enough to sing thy praise.

But as she, who once hath been
A king's consort, is a queen
Ever after, nor will bate
Any tittle of her state,
Though a widow, or divorced,
So I, from thy converse forced,
The old name and style retain,
A right Katherine of Spain;
And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys
Of the blest Tobacco Boys;

Where, though I, by sour physician,
Am debarred the full fruition
Of thy favors, I may catch

Some collateral sweets, and snatch ·
Sidelong odors, that give life

Like glances from a neighbor's wife;
And still live in the bye-places
And the suburbs of thy graces;

And in thy borders take delight,
An unconquered Canaanite.

298. THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

6

JOHN FORSTER.

["THE Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith; a Biography; in Four Books," has recently been written by John Forster, "of the Inner Temple, Barrister, author of the Lives of Statesmen of the Commonwealth.'" Mr. Forster has lighted up the authentic narrative of a literary life with the brilliant hues of taste and imagination; and, what is a higher thing, he has told the story of the errors, the sorrows, the endurance, and the success, of one of the most delightful of our best authors," with an earnest vindication of simplicity of character, and a deep sympathy with the struggles of talent, which ought to make every reader of this Life more just, tolerant, and loving to his fellows. Amongst the sound eriticism of this volume we find the following sensible estimate of Goldsmith's immortal novel.]

Every one is familiar with the Vicar of Wakefield. We read it in youth and in age. We return to it, as Walter Scott has said,