But then all happy's not his life,

He has not maid, nor blooming wife;
Nor child has he to raise his hope-
I would not wish to be the Pope.

The Sultan better pleases me,
His is a life of jollity;

His wives are many as he will—

I would the Sultan's throne then fill.

But even he's a wretched man,

He must obey his Alcoran ;

And dares not drink one drop of wine-
I would not change his lot for mine.

So then I'll hold my lowly stand,
And live in German Vaterland;
I'll kiss my maiden fair and fine,
And drink the best of Rhenish wine.

Whene'er my maiden kisses me,
I'll think that I the Sultan be;

And when my cheery glass I tope,
I'll fancy that I am the Pope.

Samuel Lover.

"MIDNIGHT DARLINGS"

While you converse with lords and dukes,
I have their betters here-my books:
Fixed in an elbow-chair at ease,
I choose companions as I please.
I'd rather have one single shelf
Than all my friends, except yourself;
For, after all that can be said,

Our best acquaintance are the dead.

T. Sheridan (Swift's).

Give me

Leave to enjoy myself. That place, that does
Contain my books, the best companions, is
To me a glorious court, where hourly I
Converse with the old sages and philosophers.
And sometimes for variety, I confer

With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels;
Calling their victories, if unjustly got,

Unto a strict account: and, in my fancy,

Deface their ill-planned statues. Can I then
Part with such constant pleasures, to embrace
Uncertain vanities? No; be it your care

To augment a heap of wealth; it shall be mine

To increase in knowledge. Lights there, for my study! John Fletcher (The Elder Brother).

Candle-Light

HAIL, candle-light! without disparagement to sun

or moon, the kindliest luminary of the threeif we may not rather style thee their radiant deputy, mild viceroy of the moon!-We love to read, talk, sit silent, eat, drink, sleep, by candle-light. They are everybody's sun and moon. This is our peculiar and household planet. Wanting it, what savage unsocial nights must our ancestors have spent, wintering in caves and unillumined fastnesses! They must have lain about and grumbled at one another in the dark. What repartees could have passed, when you must have felt about for a smile, and handled a neighbour's cheek to be sure that he understood it? This accounts for the seriousness of the elder poetry. It has a sombre cast (try Hesiod or Ossian), derived from the tradition of those unlantern'd nights. Jokes came in with candles. . . .

There is absolutely no such thing as reading, but by a candle. We have tried the affectation of a book at noon-day in gardens, and in sultry arbours; but it was labour thrown away. Those gay motes in the beam come about you, hovering and teazing, like so

many coquettes, that will have you all to their self, and are jealous of your abstractions. By the midnight taper, the writer digests his meditations. By the same light, we must approach to their perusal, if we would catch the flame, the odour. It is a mockery, all that is reported of the influential Phoebus. No true poem ever owed its birth to the sun's light. They are abstracted works

"Things that were born, when none but the still night, And his dumb candle, saw his pinching throes."

Marry, daylight-daylight might furnish the images, the crude material; but for the fine shapings, the true turning and filing (as mine author hath it), they must be content to hold their inspiration of the candle. The mild internal light, that reveals them, like fires on the domestic hearth, goes out in the sunshine. Night and silence call out the starry fancies. Milton's Morning Hymn in Paradise, we would hold a good wager, was penned at midnight; and Taylor's rich description of a sunrise smells decidedly of the taper. Even ourself, in these our humbler lucubrations, tune our best measured cadences (Prose has her cadences) not unfrequently to the charm of the drowsier watchman, "blessing the doors"; or the wild sweeps of wind at midnight. Even now a loftier speculation than we have yet attempted, courts our endeavours. We would indite something about the Solar System. -Betty, bring the candles.

Charles Lamb.