And interruptedly of distant sentinels the fitful song,
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.

And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon! upon all this,
And cast a wide and tender light, which softened down
The hoar austerity of rugged desolation,

Leaving that beautiful which still was so,

And making that which was not, 'till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
In silent worship.'

ONE cannot write, by any possibility, with a sense of pleasure, when his subject brings too many things to his recollection, and pours remembrance full upon the eye. I love to go back to the moon-light eves of other years; and I do confess, that the shimmer of a star over a city chimney; the rustle of vines in its garden walks; or the soft hum of a summer shower at night, tinkling on a thousand shadowy roofs around, and gurgling down the conduits of the eaves - those regular eaves-droppers can awaken in me a multitude of pleasant thoughts, which lie too deep for tears. Unanswered aspirations come before me with their solemnities, and I hold a deeper communion with my Maker. Some soft instrument of music, touched by a fair hand, in the nocturnal hours, adds to the quietude, and I thank that Spirit for its spell, in hurried numbers:

When the worn heart its early dream,

In darkness and in vain pursues,
How shall the visionary gleam

Of joy o'er life its charm difluse?
How shall the glowing thought aspire,
The cheek with passion's flush be warm,

Or the dim eyes resume their fire,

Their sunshine, victory of the storm?

Ah, who can tell? Not thou, whose words
Áre lightest, liveliest of the throng;
Whose carol, like the summer bird's,
Pours out the winning soul of song;
Not thou, whose calm and shining brow,
The sadness of thy strain belies;
Whose spirits, like thy music, flow,
Won from the founts of Paradise!

BY-THE-BY, the first individual from whom I ever heard an amatory effusion, was an immense arrangement of flesh and blood -a milli. ner, from Yorkshire, in England. She had come from home, with her large fat face, with all the bloom on, and with big watery eyes. How she would flatter herself that she was enchanting the students, as, in quizzing convocations, they invited her at green-horn parties, (after a turn at Blind Man's Buff, or some such highly intellectual game,) to sing 'Oh, 'tis Love - 'tis Love!' Her stupendous chest seemed to expand with the tender passion; and oh-ears, that were searched with the volume of her notes, attest the fact-how she tortured the attentive tympanum! In form, as I have said, she was immense; a John Reeve in petticoats, and not unlike that most fantastic Cupid. Gentle Giantess! Many years have passed, since she chaunted to those roystering Academy boys!' If she yet live, she might say 'Here!' to Elia's description of her whilome Oxford

counterpart: There may be her parallel upon the earth, but surely I never saw it. I take her to be lineally descended from the maid's aunt of Brainford, who caused Master Ford such uneasiness. She hath Atlantean shoulders; and, as she stoopeth in her gait with as few offences to answer for in her own particular as any of Eve's daughters her back seems broad enough to bear the blame of all the peccadillos that have been committed since Adam. She girdeth her waist or what she is pleased to esteem as suchnearly up to her shoulders, from beneath which, that huge dorsal expanse, in mountainous declivity, emergeth. Respect for her alone preventeth the idle boys, who follow her about in shoals, whenever she cometh abroad, from getting up and riding. But her presence infallibly commands a reverence. She is indeed, as the Americans would express it, something awful. Her person is a burthen to herself, no less than the ground which bears her. To her mighty bone, she hath a pinguitude withal, which makes the depth of winter to her the most desirable season. Her distress in the warmer solstice is pitiable. During the months of July and August, she usually renteth a cool cellar, where ices are kept, whereinto she descendeth when Sirius rageth. She dates from a hot Thursday—some twenty-five years ago. Her apartment in summer is pervious to the four winds. Two doors in north and south direction, and two windows fronting the rising and the setting sun, never closed, from every cardinal point catch the contributory breezes. She loves to enjoy what she calls a quadruple draught. That must be a shrewd zephyr, that can escape her. I owe a painful face-ache, which oppresses me at this moment, to a cold caught, sitting by her, one day in last July, at this receipt of coolness. Her fan, in ordinary, resembleth a banner spread, which she keepeth continually on the alert to detect the least breeze. She possesseth an active and gadding mind, totally incommensurate with her person. No one delighteth more than herself in country exercises and pastimes. I have passed many an agreeable holiday with her in her favorite park at Woodstock. She performs her part in these delightful ambulatory excursions by the aid of a portable garden chair. She setteth out with you at a fair foot gallop, which she keepeth up till you are both well breathed, and then she reposeth for a few seconds. Then she is up again for a hundred paces or so, and again resteth her movement, on these sprightly occasions, being something between walking and flying. Her great weight seemeth to propel her forward, ostrich-fashion. In this kind of relieved marching, I have traversed with her many scores of acres on those well-wooded and well-watered domains. Her delight at Oxford is in the public walks and gardens, where, when the weather is not too oppressive, she passeth much of her valuable time. There is a bench at Maudlin, or rather, situated between the frontiers of that and Christ's college-some litigation, latterly, about repairs, has vested the property of it finally in Christ's where at the hour of noon she is ordinarily to be found sitting so she calls it by courtesy but in fact, pressing and breaking of it down with her enormous settlement; as both of those foundations, who, however, are goodnatured enough to wink at it, have found, I believe, to their cost. Here she taketh the fresh air, principally at vacation times, when the

walks are freest from interruption of the younger fry of students. Here she passeth her idle hours, not idly, but generally accompanied with a book blest if she can but intercept some resident Fellow, (as usually there are some of that brood left behind at these periods,) or stray Master of Arts, (to most of whom she is better known than their dinner bell,) with whom she may confer upon any curious topic of literature.'

YET the burden of love and song, after all, hallows every thing it bends withal. Poetry is your true dignifier of the work-day world. In amber, your fly may go down balmy to other ages, that without that sweet consistence for an overcoat, shall smell to heaven from the shambles, or be passed with a buzz of contempt by surviving friends of his race, of either gender, as they disport themselves, in impassioned union, on a warm summer pane. Even servitude may thus be embellished by song, and the humblest stations win the highest flights. Here followeth a strain to a waiter's memory, well known to the denizens of Brotherly Love, in other hours, - but now laid i' the earth, with all odors and honor. Some lines therein shall be seen italicized. 'Tis a work of mine, for which I crave the pardon of the friend from whose rare harp the numbers come:

DEDICATED, WITH PERMISSION, AND A PIECE OF MINT-STICK, TO META B, AGED FOUR YEARS.

'Of Brownis and of Bogilis ful is this buke.' GAWIN DOUGLAS.

BOGLE! not he whose shadow flies
Before a frighted Scotchman's eyes,

But thou of Eighth near Sansom - thou,

Colorless color'd man, whose brow

Unmoved the joys of life surveys,

Untouched the gloom of death displays;
Reckless if joy or grief prevail,
Stern, multifarious BOGLE, hail!

Hail may'st thou Bogle, for thy reign
Extends o'er nature's wide domain,
Begins before our earliest breath,
Nor ceases with the hour of death:
Scarce seems the blushing maiden wed,
Unless thy care the supper spread;
Half christened only were that boy,
Whose heathen squalls our ears annoy,
If, supper finished, cakes and wine
Were given by any hand but thine;
And Christian burial e'en were scant,
Unless his aid the Bogle grant.
Lover of pomps! the dead might rise,
And feast upon himself his eyes,
When marshalling the black array,
Thou rul' st the sadness of the day;

Teaching how grief should be genteel,

And legatees should seem to feel.
Death's seneschal! 'tis thine to trace
For each his proper look and place,

How aunts should weep, where uncles stand,

With hostile cousins, hand in hand,

Give matchless gloves, and fitly shape

By length of face the length of crape.

See him erect, with lofty tread,

The dark scarf streaming from his head,
Lead forth his groups in order meet,

And range them, grief-wise, in the street;
Presiding o'er the solemn show,
The very Chesterfield of wo.
Evil to him should bear the pall,
Yet comes too late or not at all;
Wo to the mourner who shall stray
One inch beyond the trim array;

Still worse, the kinsman who shall move,
Until thy signal voice approve.

Let widows, anxious to fulfil,

(For the first time,) the dear man's will,
Lovers and lawyers ill at ease,

For bliss deferr'd, or loss of fees,
Or heirs, impatient of delay,
Chafe inly at his formal stay;

The Bogle heeds not; firm and truc,
Resolved to give the dead his due,
No jot of honor will he bate,

Nor stir towards the church-yard gate,
Till the last parson is at hand,

And every hat has got its band.

Before his stride the town gives way
Beggars and belles confess his sway;

Drays, prudes, and sweeps, a startled mass,

Rein up to let his cortége pass,

And Death himself, that ceaseless dun,
Who waits on all, yet waits for none,
Rebuked beneath his haughty tone,
Scarce dares to call his life his own.

Nor less, stupendous man! thy power,
In festal than in funeral hour,
When gas and beauty's blended rays
Set hearts and ball-rooms in a blaze;
Or spermaceti's light reveals

More inward bruises' than it heals;
In flames each belle her victim kills,
And sparks fly upward' in quadrilles,
Like iceberg in an Indian clime,
Refreshing Bogle breathes sublime,
Cool airs upon that sultry stream,
From Roman punch or frosted cream.

So, sadly social, when we flee
From milky talk and watery tea,
To dance by inches in that strait
Betwixt a side-board and a grate,
With rug uplift, and blower tight,
'Gainst that foul fire-fiend, anthracite,
Then Bogle o'er the weary hours

A world of sweets incessant showers,
Till, blest relief from noise and foam,
The farewell pound-cake warns us home.
Wide opes the crowd to let thee pass,
And hail the music of thy glass.
Drowning all other sounds, e'en those
From Bollman or Sigoigne that rose;

From Chapman's self some eye will stray
To rival charms upon thy tray,

Which thou dispensest with an air,

As life or death depended there.

Wo for the luckless wretch, whose back

Has stood against a window crack,

And then impartial, cool'st in turn

The youth whom love and Lehigh burn.

On Johnson's smooth and placid mien
A quaint and fitful smile is seen;
O'er Shepherd's pale romantic face,
A radiant simper we may trace;
But on the Bogle's steadfast cheek,
Lugubrious thoughts their presence speak.
His very smile, serenely stern,
As lighted lachrymary urn.

In church or state, in bower and hall,
He gives with equal face to all:
The wedding cake, the funeral crape,
The mourning glove, the festal grape;
In the same tone when crowd's disperse,
Calls Powel's hack, or Carter's hearse;
As gently grave, as sadly grim,
At the quick waltz as funeral hymn.

Thou social Fabius! since the day,
When Rome was saved by wise delay,
None else has found the happy chance,
By always waiting, to advance.
Let time and tide, coquettes so rude,
Pass on, yet hope to be pursued,
Thy gentler nature waits on all';
When parties rage, on thee they call,
Who seek no office in the state,
Content, while others push, to wait.

Yet, (not till Providence bestowed
On Adam's sons McAdam's road,)
Unstumbling foot was rarely given
To man nor beast when quickly driven;
And they do say, but this I doubt,
For seldom he lets things leak out,
They do say, ere the dances close,
His too are light fantastic toes.'
Oh, if this be so, Bogle! then
How are we served by serving men!
A waiter by his weight forsaken!
An undertaker- overtaken!!

L'ENVOI.

META! thy riper years may know
More of this world's fantastic show;
In thy time, as in mine, shall be,

Burials and pound-cake, beaux and tea;
Rooms shall be hot, and ices cold,
And flirts be both, as 't was of old;

Love, too, and mint-stick shall be made,

Some dearly bought, some lightly weighed ;
As true the hearts, the forms as fair,

And equal joy and grace be there,
The smile as bright, as soft the ogle,
But never never such a Bogle!

ONE word in your ear, reader, before we part.

The writer of the

foregoing is a Monster.' If you would see his like, (in some men's opinion,) consult Homer, Milton, and Dante, passim. You shall not find, in all their pages, a monster of more note, or one that less deserves the name. He is a summer's morning monster, and wears the brighter as the calmness of the mid-day hours plays full upon him. I have given you a clue resolve me my Riddle.

Totally thine,

OLLAPOD.