You might, I think, have hammered out,
With meaning doubly clear,

The midnight of a Vauxhall rout

In Evelina's ear;

Or when the night was almost gone,

You might, the deals between,
Have startled those who looked upon
The cloth when it was green.

But no, in all the vanished years
Down which your wheels have run,
Your message borne to heedless ears
Is one and only one-

No wit of men, no power of kings,
Can stem the overthrow

Wrought by this pendulum that swings
Sedately to and fro.

Alfred Cochrane.

To Spring Gardens

WE

E were no sooner come to the Temple Stairs, but we were surrounded with a crowd of watermen, offering us their respective services. Sir Roger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one with a wooden leg, and immediately gave him orders to get his boat ready. As we were walking towards it, "You must know," says Sir Roger, "I

never make use of anybody to row me that has not either lost a leg or an arm. I would rather bate him a few strokes of his oar than not employ an honest man that has been wounded in the queen's service. If I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, I would not put a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden leg."

My old friend, after having seated himself, and trimmed the boat with his coachman, who, being a very sober man, always serves for ballast on these occasions, we made the best of our way for Vauxhall. Sir Roger obliged the waterman to give us the history of his right leg; and, hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, with many particulars which passed in that glorious action, the knight, in the triumph of his heart, made several reflections on the greatness of the British nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never be in danger of popery so long as we took care of our fleet; that the Thames was the noblest river in Europe; that London Bridge was a greater piece of work than any of the seven wonders of the world; with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.

After some short pause, the old knight, turning about his head twice or thrice, to take a survey of this great metropolis, bid me observe how thick the city was set with churches, and that there was scarce a single steeple on this side Temple Bar. "A most heathenish sight!" says Sir Roger: "there is no

religion at this end of the town. The fifty new churches will very much amend the prospect; but church work is slow, church work is slow."

I do not remember I have any where mentioned in Sir Roger's character, his custom of saluting every body that passes by him with a good morrow, or a good night. This the old man does out of the overflowings of his humanity; though, at the same time, it renders him so popular among all his country neighbours, that it is thought to have gone a good way in making him once or twice knight of the shire. He cannot forbear this exercise of benevolence even in town, when he meets with any one in his morning or evening walk. It broke from him to several boats that passed by us upon the water; but, to the knight's great surprise, as he gave the good night to two or three young fellows a little before our landing, one of them, instead of returning the civility, asked us what queer old put we had in the boat, and whether he was not ashamed to go a-wenching at his years; with a great deal of the like Thames ribaldry.

Joseph Addison.

On a Fan that belonged to the Marquise de

Pompadour

CHICKEN-SKIN, delicate, white,

Painted by Carlo Vanloo,

Loves in a riot of light,

Roses and vaporous blue; Hark to the dainty frou-frou! Picture above, if you can,

Eyes that could melt as the dew,— This was the Pompadour's fan!

See how they rise at the sight,

Thronging the Eil de Bouf through,
Courtiers as butterflies bright,
Beauties that Fragonard drew,
Talon-rouge, falbala, queue,
Cardinal, Duke,—to a man,
Eager to sigh or to sue,—
This was the Pompadour's fan!

Ah, but things more than polite
Hung on this toy, voyez-vous !
Matters of state and of might,
Things that great ministers do;
Things that, may be, overthrew
Those in whose brains they began ;
Here was the sign and the cue,—
This was the Pompadour's fan !

ENVOY

Where are the secrets it knew?

Weavings of plot and of plan? -But where is the Pompadour, too? This was the Pompadour's Fan!

Austin Dobson.

The Muffin-Man

A

LITTLE man, who muffins sold

When I was little too,

Carried a face of giant mould,

But tall he never grew.

His arms were legs for length and size,
His coat-tail touch'd his heels;
His brows were forests o'er his eyes,
His voice like waggon-wheels.

When fallen leaves together flock,
And gusts begin to squall,
And suns go down at six o'clock,
You heard his muffin-call.

Born in the equinoctial blast,
He came and shook his bell ;
And with the equinox he pass'd,
But whither none could tell.

Some thought the monster turn'd to dew
When muffins ceased to reign,
And lay in buds the summer through,
Till muffin-time again;

Or satyr, used the woods to rove,

Or even old Caliban,

Drawn by the lure of oven-stove

To be a muffin-man.