Of Nature the boast, of mankind the desire,
Now part of a leap; and again the entire :

I am solid, and liquid, in grottos I dwell ;
At times I am sickly; but always am well.

I am never the Ocean, tho' oft "th' azure main,"
And whatever you trace, am the source, I maintain.
What am I, fair Reader? you seem at a fault :
Shall I give you a hint ? I am often a vault.
But for me sandy deserts were barrenness all;
By me the fleet steed scampers over the wall.
I "keep moving," like Rapid; still going, yet gone,
Ere the summer clad fields their rich livery don :

Well disposed, and well temper'd, tho' sanguine, I labour
Incessant to loosen the chain of my neighbour.

I am lovely and loved; and yet all must agree
That of evil, what may be call'd source, is in me.

FINALE,

OR THE RED BOX:

TO THE AUTHOR.*

66

Seemeth, thy Muse can never tire;

From thy glad mood thick jests arise;
But tell me, who thy verse admire?
Or heed thy slighted pleasantries?

*From himself.

Let thy Muse write for The Red Box ;*
And not a truant verse take wind.

66

Why art thou, simpleton, so gay?

For, that thy lot is free from care,
And bright with prosperous sunshine?"-Nay:
'Tis from pure gaieté de cœur.

Still, from some tristia,† of my making,
Due sense of suffering may appear:
Soit; yet my friendly counsel taking,
Keep to yourself both smile and tear.”

Sound your advice; and it shall sway;
Counsel at once of Sense and Pride;
Why should my verse be thrown away,
And others dozed, I mortified?

But chiming verse-streams soothe at night;
The Muse each eye-lid kindly locks.
"A la bonne heure: compose and write;
But only write for your Red Box."

* A small box, in which his verses, and other papers of little consequence, were kept.

+Witness" Auld Lang Syne."-Tristia may be translated Elegies. Ovid has so entitled his "elegies of woe."

So far for night;-but in the day,
My jests act wholesomely on me ;
Side-shaking laugh they give one." Hey!
"Laughing aloud,—jest inwardly.”

Lines

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9.

EXPLANATION OF RIDDLE, IN PAGE 78.

The general subject is Wax.

The raw material of Wax is known to be the Pollen, which lies upon the Antheræ of Flowers. The Corolla may well enough be considered as the cradle of the stamina, with their Antheræ and Pollen.

The armed (with stings) and murmuring marauders, of course, are bees; and their dark abode the hive.

The whiteness of what is termed virgin wax, is very considerable, and (inasmuch as the Pollen is not white) must be acquired by some process, which the bees make it undergo. These little artists may therefore be said to array it in pure white. The wax, we know, when purified, is neatly combed; i. e. formed with the nicest arrangement, into combs. Thus when we put corn or hay into stack, we say that we have stacked it. Thus formed into comb, the wax is stuffed with sweets; (viz. with honey) and being applied solely

11. 12. 13.

to the construction of those cells which constitute the comb, may be truly said to be "to cells confined."

Describe the smothering of the hive of bees, 14. and 15 and its consequences. It need not be observed that the golden hoards are the honey; the flava mella. As for the bees, they are clearly stingy; not stin-gy if you please, but sting-y; nay it may be questioned if they are not stingy, in its more ordinary sense. If not downright penurious, they at least, and notoriously, are very frugal.

15. 16.

17. 18.

19 to 26.

27 to 32.

33 to 38.

Allude to the various purposes to which wax is applied; some of which are commemorated in the lines that follow.

Suggest the expressing of the honey from the comb; and thus leaving the wax drained of all that it had contained.

Represent the hero of the Riddle under the form of a wax baby; which, it will be admitted, cannot speak.

Here we have the hero metamorphosed to a wax candle; headed with light, (and consequently light headed,) and furnished with a wick; and therefore truly described as wick'd or wicked.

The open-mouthed and amicable assailant (or rather pair of assailants) appears to be the snuffers; whose manner we know to be (not blunt indeed, but) tranchant; and the usual effect of whose exertions is, that the taper becomes less wicked, or (which is the same thing) shorter wicked. The ultimate effect of those same exertions we also

39 to 50.

51 to end.

know to be, that the candle shines with renovated lustre. Time was, indeed, when wax candles were scarcely ever snuffed but that race of tapers has been long extinct. Like the subjects of Homer's and of Ossian's praise, they are to be considered as the heroes of other days.

In these lines the hero appears in the form of a stick of black sealing-wax; which, when employed to seal a letter of the mourner who makes use of it, may with truth be said to melt for others' woes. -In making the mourning endure for a whole year, I admit I have got amongst practices now antiquated and obsolete. As for lines 43 and 44, it will be granted, that by the illumination of an assembly or a ball-room, merit such as Cowper's would have been sent scampering (as nimbly as one of his pet hares) to its snug closet. That sealing-wax will be torn in pieces, before it discloses the secrets with which it has been trusted, is a truth, which (as may sometimes happen to those pieces) saute aux yeux;-and if the impression was a head, the faithful wax will have lost this, in attempting to keep close what had been committed to its care.

It must be confessed that our hero, turning soldier, still continues a mere STICK. But his consequent erectness is not unmilitary; and (though without blushing at his change of condition,) it will be observed that he waxes red; or, to express the thing in different language, becomes red wax. From the last six lines, indeed, he may be con