Of all his talents I partake,

Who then can such a friend forsake?
'Tis I direct the pilot's hand

To shun the rocks and treacherous sand:

By me the distant world is known,

And either India is our own.

Had I with milliners been bred,

What had I been? the guide of thread,
And drudged as vulgar Needles do,

Of no more consequence than you." 1

(1) Ignorance and presumption are common associates; hence we underrate others, in proportion as we exalt ourselves, and in both cases, from being misled by external appearances, to the neglect of inherent worth. Yet even the toad bears some jewel within him, and every creature is valuable for its final above all for its primary, cause. Moreover Gay gives a shrewd intimation of the light and trivial notice bestowed by many, on the sources and subjects of knowledge they profess to seek, and indeed there are few spectacles more absurd, than that of the self-instituted cheat, palmed off by multitudes, who pay their shilling to see some representation of twenty different topics in an hour, and think they have really derived sound practical information upon them, and are suddenly transformed into people of science, by a hurried ten minutes' address from the lecturer! It is not every day, that Minerva starts from the head even of a Jove-like Crichton,-fully armed!

The contact of virtue, like that of vice, is generative of its own likeness, and a bag of half-pence, in which only one sovereign is placed, obtains particles of the latter's brilliancy; but the action of mind upon itself, and the attrition of thought upon circumstance, constitute true moral and intellectual growth.

A WOLF, with hunger, fierce and bold,
Ravaged the plains, and thinn'd the fold;
Deep in the wood, secure he lay,
The thefts of night regaled the day.
In vain the shepherd's wakeful care
Had spread the toils, and watch'd the snare;
In vain the dog pursued his pace,
The fleeter robber mock'd the chase.
As Lightfoot ranged the forest round,

By chance his foe's retreat he found.

"Let us awhile the war suspend, And reason as from friend to friend."

"A truce!" replies the Wolf. 'Tis done. The Dog the parley thus begun.

"How can that strong intrepid mind
Attack a weak defenceless kind?

Those jaws should prey on nobler food,
And drink the boar's and lion's blood.
Great souls with generous pity melt,
Which coward tyrants never felt.
How harmless is our fleecy care!
Be brave, and let thy mercy spare."

"Friend," says the wolf, "the matter weigh;
Nature design'd us beasts of prey;

As such, when hunger finds a treat,
'Tis necessary Wolves should eat.
If, mindful of the bleating weal,
Thy bosom burn with real zeal,
Hence, and thy tyrant lord beseech;
To him repeat the moving speech:
A Wolf eats sheep but now and then,
Ten thousands are devour'd by men.
open foe may prove a curse,
But a pretended friend is worse.

An

" 1

(1) As equivocation has been well termed a lie without the courage of it, seeing that it is a lie guarded, so the "acting a lie," as Robert Hall expressed it, shows the same tortuous spirit, with double the malignity. But of all lies, deception in pretended friendship, and an hypocritical assumption of honourable feeling, are the most destructive; for when detected, they impair man's opinion of virtue, by showing how close its counterfeit may come to it: this caused the poignancy of David's grief. (Ps. lv. 12.) But this should teach us that confidence is a plant of slow growth, and that according to the old proverb quoted by Aristotle, (Eth. b. viii. c. 4,) "it is impossible for men to know one another before they have eaten a stated quantity of salt together;" upon which remark Cicero's rule is founded, "Omnino amicitiæ, corroboratis jam confirmatisque, et ingeniis et ætatibus judicandæ sunt."-Cic. de Amicit. c. 20.

LEST men suspect your tale untrue,
Keep probability in view.1

The traveller leaping o'er those bounds,
The credit of his book confounds.

Who with his tongue hath armies routed,
Makes e'en his real courage doubted.2
But flattery never seems absurd,

The flatter'd always take your word:

Impossibilities seem just,

They take the strongest praise on trust.

(1) Vide Arist. Poet. ch. 15.

(2) Which it is astonishing that Othello did not, when he recited his "traveller's tales" to Desdemona. (Vide Othello, Act I.)

F

Hyperboles, though ne'er so great,
Will still come short of self-conceit.
So very like, a Painter drew,
That every eye, the picture knew.
He hit complexion, feature, air,
So just, the life itself was there.
No flattery with his colours laid,
To bloom restored the faded maid;
He gave each muscle all its strength;
The mouth, the chin, the nose's length;
His honest pencil touch'd with truth,
And mark'd the date of age and youth.

He lost his friends, his practice fail'd;
Truth should not always be reveal'd.1
In dusty piles his pictures lay,
For no one sent the second pay.
Two bustos, fraught with every grace,
A Venus' and Apollo's face,

He placed in view; resolved to please,
Whoever sat, he drew from these,
From these corrected every feature,
And spirited each awkward creature.

All things were set, the hour was come,

His pallet ready o'er his thumb;

My Lord appear'd, and seated right,

In proper attitude and light.

The Painter look'd, he sketch'd the piece,

Then dipt his pencil, talk'd of Greece,
Of Titian's tints, of Guido's air;

"Those eyes, my Lord, the spirit there

(1) Truth, like the shower-bath, requires in most men, a preparative discipline, before their nerves are rendered capable of bearing the shock of it,