So thou hast shed some blossoms of gaiety,
But never one of steadfast cheerfulness;
Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity
Robb'd thee of any faith in happiness,
But rather clear'd thine inner eyes to see
How many simple ways there are to bless.

Great truths are portions of the soul of man;
Great souls are portions of eternity;

Each drop of blood that e'er through true heart ran
With lofty message, ran for thee and me;

For God's law, since the starry song began,
Hath been, and still for evermore must be.
That every deed which shall outlast Time's span
Must goad the soul to be erect and free;
Slave is no word of deathless lineage sprung,-
Too many noble souls have thought and died,
Too many mighty poets lived and sung,
And our good Saxon, from lips purified
With martyr-fire, throughout the world hath rung
Too long to have God's holy cause denied.

The Haunch of Venison.

GOLDSMITH.

[A POETICAL EPISTLE ADDRESSED TO LORD CLARE]

THANKS, my lord, for your venison! for finer or fatter

Ne'er ranged in a forest, or smoked in a platter.

The haunch was a picture for painters to study,

The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy;

Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting, To spoil such a delicate picture by eating:

I had thoughts in my chambers to place it in view

To show to my friends as a piece of virtù :

As in some Irish houses, where things are so so,
One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show:

;

But for eating a rasher of what they take pride in,
They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fry'd in.
But hold-let me pause-don't I hear you pronounce
This tale of the bacon's a damnable bounce?
Well, suppose it a bounce-sure a poet may try
By a bounce now and then to get courage to fly.

But, my lord, it's no bounce; I protest in my turn,
It's a truth, and your lordship may ask Mr Burn.
To go on with my tale :—as I gazed on the haunch,
I thought of a friend that was trusty and staunch;
So I cut it, and sent it to Reynolds undrest,

To paint it, or eat it, just as he liked best.

Of the neck and the breast I had next to dispose,
'Twas a neck and a breast that might rival Monroe's.
But in parting with these I was puzzled again,

With the how, and the who, and the where, and the when.
There's Hd, and C--y, and H-rth, and

H--ff,

I think they love venison- I know they love beef.
There's my countryman Higgins-Oh! let him alone
For making a blunder or picking a bone :
But hang it to poets who seldom can eat,

Your very good mutton's a very good treat;

Such dainties to send them their health it might hurt,
It's like sending them ruffles when wanting a shirt.
While thus I debated in reverie centred,

An acquaintance, a friend as he call'd himself, enter'd,
An under-bred fine-spoken fellow was he,

And he smiled as he look'd at the venison and me:
"What have we got here?-why, this is good eating!
Your own, I suppose-or is it in waiting?"

"Why, whose should it be?" cried I with a flounce, 66 I get these things often :" (but that was a bounce :) "Some lords my acquaintance, that settle the nation, Are pleased to be kind,-but I hate ostentation."

"If that be the case then," cried he, very gay, "I'm glad I have taken this house in my way. To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me ; No words-I insist on 't-precisely at three;

We'll have Johnson and Burke; all the wits will be there;
My acquaintance is slight or I'd ask my Lord Clare.
And now that I think on 't, as I am a sinner,
We wanted this venison to make out the dinner!
What say you-a pasty; it shall, and it must.
And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust.
Here, porter-this venison with me to Mile End ;
No stirring, I beg, my dear friend, my dear friend."
Then snatching his hat, he brush'd off like the wind,
And the porter and eatables follow'd behind:

Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf,
And "nobody with me at sea but myself,"
Though I could not help thinking my gentleman hasty,
Yet Johnson, and Burke, and a good venison pasty,
Were things that I never disliked in my life,
Though clogg'd with a coxcomb and Kitty his wife.
So next day, in due splendour to make my approach,
I drove to his door in my own hackney coach.

When come to the place where we all were to dine, (A chair-lumber'd closet, just twelve feet by nine,) My friend made me welcome, but struck me quite dumb, With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come ; "For I knew it," he cried, " both eternally fail, The one with his speeches and t' other with Thrale ; But no matter. I'll warrant we'll make up the party With two full as clever, and ten times as hearty. The one is a Scotchman, the other a Jew, They're both of them merry, and authors like you. The one writes the 'Snarler,' the other the 'Scourge ;' Some thinks he writes 'Cinna,'-he owns to 'Panurge.'

While thus he described them by trade and by name,
They enter'd, and dinner was served as they came.

At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen,
At the bottom was tripe in a swinging tureen;
At the side there was spinage and pudding made hot;
In the middle a place where the pasty—was not.
Now, my lord, as for tripe, it's my utter aversion,
And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Persian;
So that I sat stuck, like a horse in a pound,
While the bacon and liver went merrily round:
But what vexed me most, was that d—n'd Scottish rogue,
With his long-winded speeches, his smiles and his brogue.
And “Madam,” quoth he, “may this bit be my poison,
A prettier bit I never set eyes on:

Pray a slice of your liver; though, may I be curst,
But I've eat of your tripe till I'm ready to burst.”

"The tripe," quoth the Jew, with his chocolate cheek, "I could dine on this tripe seven days in the week ; I like these here dinners so pretty and small:

But your friend there, the doctor, eats nothing at all."

"Oh, oh !" quoth my friend, "he'll come on in a trice, "He's keeping a corner for something that's nice : There's a pasty”—“A pasty!" repeated the Jew; "I don't care if I keep a corner for 't too." "What the deil, mon, a pasty!" re-echo'd the Scot; "Though splitting, I'll still keep a corner for thot." "We'll all keep a corner," the lady cried out; "We'll all keep a corner," was echo'd about. While thus we resolved, and the pasty delay'd, With looks that quite petrified enter'd the maid: A visage so sad, and so pale with affright, Waked Priam in drawing his curtains by night.

But we quickly found out-for who could mistake her? That she came with some terrible news from the baker;

And so it turn'd out; for that negligent sloven

Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven.
Sad Philomel thus-but let similes drop-
And now that I think on 't, the story may stop.
To be plain, my good lord, it's but labour misplaced,
To send such good verses to one of your taste;
You've got an odd something-a kind of discerning-
A relish a taste-sicken'd over by learning;
At least, it's your temper, as very well known,
That you think very slightly of all that's your own:
So, perhaps in your habits of thinking amiss,
You may make a mistake and think slightly of this.

A Gossip at Beculvers.

DOUGLAS JERROLD.

[DOUGLAS JERROLD was a name long familiar in every mouth. A book was dedicated to him as to "the first wit of the present age." Those who knew him well in private life will feel that this is not mere friendly exaggeration. Those who know him through the veil of anonymous writing understand that a good deal of the long-continued success of a periodical work, at which all could laugh and few were offended, may be ascribed to his inexhaustible possession of that "infinite jest,” of those "flashes of merriment" which "set the table in a roar." Such fame is perhaps evanescent. It has its 'mmediate success in light dramas and political jeux d'esprit. But there is a higher fame to which, even in his highest moods, Mr Jerrold had not been insensible that of an earnest vindicator of the claims of the wretched to forbearance and sympathy. We may think, as abstract reasoners, that in these matters he sometimes went too far; but, when we consider that the tendencies of a great commercial country are in a high degree selfish, we are constrained to acknowledge that it is the duty and privilege of genius to throw its weight into the opposite scale, and make an earnest fight for the maintenance of that real brotherhood which must be upheld in every condition of society which aspires to peace and security. This has been the great function of the poetical mind in all ages. Mr Jerrold's real talent was of the dramatic, rather than the narrative kind. His "Caudle Lectures were admirable examples of the skill with which character can be preserved in every possible variety of circum. stances. The extract which we give—from a Series of Essays appended to a remarkable little volume. "The Chronicles of Clovernook," (which exhibits,