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gayety of happy peasants, or shed their influences on the hearts of youthful bards. If, indeed, the people were awakened into energy,

and their spirit was regulated by wise and beneficent governors, the capital of Portugal would assuredly become the fairest of cities.

MR. CHARLES LLOYD'S POEMS.*

[LONDON MAGAZINE.]

THERE is no more remarkable instance of the ciates-offering a child-like feebleness in con"cant of criticism," than the representation trast to Wordsworth's nerve-and ranging currently received as distinctive, whereby through mythologies and strange fantasies, not several authors, chiefly residing in the neigh- only with less dominion than Coleridge, but bourhood of the lakes, were characterized merely portraying the shapes to which they gave as belonging to one school of poetry. In existence, instead of discovering the spirit of truth, propinquity of residence, and the bonds truth and beauty within them. Nor does the of private friendship, are the only circum- author before us, often combined with these stances which have ever given the slightest by the ignorance or the artifice of criticism, colour to the hypothesis which marked them differ less widely from them. Without Wordsout as disciples of the same creed. It is worth's intuitive perception of the profoundest scarcely possible to conceive individuals more truths, or Coleridge's feeling of beauty, he has dissimilar in the objects of their choice, or in a subtile activity of mind which supplies the the essential properties of their genius. Who, place of the first, and a wonderful power of for example, can have less in common than minute observation, which, when directed to Wordsworth and Coleridge, if we except lovely objects, in a great degree produces the those faculties which are necessarily the effect of the latter. All these three rise on portion of the highest order of imaginative some occasions to the highest heaven of thought minds! The former of these has sought for and feeling, though by various processeshis subjects among the most ordinary oc- Wordsworth reaching it at once by the divine currences of life, which he has dignified and wingedness of his genius-Coleridge ascendexalted, from which he has extracted the ing to it by a spiral track of glory winding on holiest essences of good, or over which he through many a circuit of celestial light-and has cast a consecrating and harmonizing Lloyd stepping thither by a firm ladder, like light which never was by sea or land." that of Jacob, by even steps, which the feet The latter, on the other hand, has spread of angels have trodden! abroad his mighty mind, searching for his materials through all history and all science, penetrating into the hidden soul of the wildest superstitions, and selecting the richest spoils of time from the remotest ages. Wordsworthings were overcast by a gentle melancholy, is all intensity-he sees nothing, but through the hallowing medium of his own soul, and represents all things calm, silent, and harmonious as his own perceptions. Coleridge throws himself into all the various objects which he contemplates, and attracts to his own imagery their colours and forms. The first, seizes only the mighty and the true with a giant grasp;--the last has a passionate and almost effeminate love of beauty and tenderness which he never loses. One looks only on the affections in their inmost home, while the other perceives them in the lightest and remotest tints, which they cast on objects the strangest and most barbarous. All the distinction, in short, between the intense and the expansive the severe and the lovely-the philosophic and the magical-really separates these great poets, whom it has been the fashion to censure as united in one heresy. If we cast the slightest glance at Southey's productions, we shall find him unlike either of these, his asso

The peculiar qualities of Mr. Lloyd's genius have never been so clearly developed as in the chief poem of the work before us. In his Nuga Canoræ," all his thoughts and feel

which rendered their prominences less distinct, as it shed over them one sad and sober hue. Even, however, in his most pensive moods, the vigorous and restless activity of his intellect might be discerned, curiously inquiring for the secret springs of its own distress, and regarding its sorrows as high problems worthy of the most painful scrutiny. While he exhi bited to us the full and pensive stream of emotion, with all the images of soft clouds and delicate foliage reflected on its bosom, he failed not to conduct us to its deep-seated fountains, or to lay open to our view the jagged caverns within its banks. Yet here the vast intellectual power was less conspicuous than in his last poems, because the personal emotion was more intense, single, and pervading. He is now, we rejoice to observe, more "i' the sun," and consequently, the nice workings of his reason are set more distinctly before us. The

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Desultory Thoughts in London" embrace a great variety of topics, associated in the mind of the author with the metropolis, but many *Desultory Thoughts in London. Titus and Gisippus, with of them belonging to those classes of abstracother Poems. By CHARLES LLOYD, author of Nuga Canoration which might as fitly be contemplated in a

and translator of Alfieri's Tragedies, 12mo, 1821.

desert. Among these are "Fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute," the theories of manners and morals-the doctrines of ex

The blind as well might doubt of sense and sight:
Peruse their lives, who thus have vow'd pursuit
Of heavenly communion: in despite

Their singleness of heart: except ye fight

Of all your arguments ye can't dispute

'Gainst facts, ye, self-convicted, must be mute.
Will ye deny, that they've a secret found
To battle fate, and heal each mortal wound?
Will ye deny, to them alone 'tis given,

'Tis mainly requisite, to partake of heaven,

Who its existence, as a faith, embraced?

That the heart's treasures there should first be placed.
According to thy faith shall it be given

To thee, with spiritual glories, to be graced.
As well all facts whence man experience hath,
As doubt immunities bound up in faith.
'Tis easy thing to say, that men are knaves;

'Tis easy thing to say, that men are fools;
'Tis easy thing to say, an author raves;

Easy, to him who always ridicules
The incomprehensible, to allege--and saves
Trouble of farther thought-that oft there rules
Fanatic feeling in a madman's brain :

That half-pretence oft ekes out half-insane.

We know all this; but we know also well,
These men we speak of tried by every test

Admissible, all other men excel

Are they, stern Fate, spite of thy direst spell :
In virtue, and in happiness. Since bless'd
Infection, loathsome maladies, each pest
And plague, for these have they,-should they assall
A panacea which will never fail.

pediency and self-interest-with many speculations relating to the imaginative parts of literature, and the influences of religion upon them-all of which are grasped by the hand of a master. The whole range of controversial writing scarcely affords an example of propositions stated so lucidly, qualified so craftily, and urged with such exemplary fairness and candour as in this work. It must, indeed, be admitted, that the admirable qualities! of the argument render it somewhat unfit for marriage with immortal verse." Philosophical poetry, when most attractive, seizes on some grand elemental truths, which it links to the noblest material images, and seeks rather to send one vast sentiment to the heart through the medium of the imagination, than to lead the mind by a regular process of logic, to the result which it contemplates. Mere didactic poetry, as Pope's Essay on Man, succeeds not by the nice balance of reasons, but by decking out some obvious common-place in a gorgeous rhetoric, or by expressing a familiar sentiment in such forcible language as will give it a singular charm to all who have felt its justice in a plainer garb. In general, the poet, no less than the woman, who deliberates, is lost. But Mr. Lloyd's effusions are in a great measure exceptions to this rule;-for though they are sometimes "harsh and crabbed," and someumes too minute, they are marked by so hearty an earnestness, and adorned by such variety of illustration, and imbued with such deep sentiment, that they often enchant while they convince us. Although his processes are careful, his results belong to the stateliest Ye, that might cavil at these humble lays, range of truths. His most laborious reason- Peruse the page of child-like Fenelon : ings lead us to elevated views of humanity-Hear what the wrapped, transfigured Guion says to the sense of a might above reason itself-to those objects which have inspired the most glorious enthusiasm, and of which the profoundest bards have delighted to afford us glimpses. It is quite inspiring to follow him as he detects the inconsistencies of worldly wisdom, as he breaks the shallow reasonings of the advocates of expediency into pieces, or as he vindicates their prerogatives to faith and hope. He leads us up a steep and stony ascent, step by step; but cheers us by many a ravishing prospect by the way, and conducts at last to an eminence, not only above the mists of error, but where the rainbow comes, and whence the gate of heaven may be seen as from the Delectable Mountains which Bunyan's Pilgrim visited.

We scarcely know how to select a specimen which shall do justice to an author whose speculations are too vast to be completed within a short space, and are connected with others by delicate links of thought. We will give, however, his vindication of the enthusiastic and self-denying spirit, which, however associated with absurdity, is the soul of all religion and virtue.

Reasoners, that argue of ye know not what,
Do not, as mystical, my strain deride:
By facts' criterion be its doctrine tried.

God is their rock, their fortress of defence,

In time of trouble, a defence most holy;
For them the wrath of man is impotence;

His pride, a bubble; and his wisdom, folly.
That "peace" have they-unspeakable intense,
"Which passeth understanding!" Melancholy
Life's gands to them: the unseen they explore:

Rooted in heaven, to live is-to adore!

With ills of body such as few have known;-
Tedious imprisonment; in youthful days

To poverty devoted, she defies
To luxuries used, they all aside are thrown;
Its sorest ills, blessing the sacrifice.

Was e'er an instance known, that man could taste

True peace of mind, and spurn religion's laws? In other things were this alliance traced;

We scruple not to call them; or, at least,

Constant coincidence; effect, and cause,

Condition indispensable, whence draws
The one, the other. This coincidence
But grant me here;-and grant the consequence.
Facts, facts, are stubborn things! We trust the sense
Of sight, because the experience of each day
Warrants our trust in it. Now, tell me whence
It is, no mortal yet could dare to say,
Man trusted in his God for his defence,

And was confounded? cover'd with dismay ?
Loses he friends? Religion dries his tears!
Loses he life? Religion calms his fears!
Loses he health? Religion balms his mind,

And pains of flesh seem ministers of grace,
And wait upon a rapture more refined,
Than e'en in lustiest health e'er found a place.

Loses he wealth the pleasure it can find

He had before renounced; thus he can trace
No difference, but that now the heart bestows
What through a hand less affluent scantier flows.

He too as much enjoys the spectacle

of good, when done by others as by him:

Loses he fame the honour he loves well

Is not of earth, but that which seraphim Might prize! Loses he liberty? his cell,

And all its vaults, echo his rapturous hymn: He feels as free as freest bird in air!

His heaven-shrined spirit finds heaven everywhere!

'Tis not romance which we are uttering! No;
Thousands of volumes each word's truth attest!
Thousands of souls redeem'd from all below
Can bring a proof, that, e'en while earthly guest,
'Tis possible for man that peace to know,

Which maketh him impassive to the test
Of mortal sufferance! Many and many a martyr
Has found this bound up in religion's charter.

Pleasure, or philosophical or sensual,

Is not, ought not to be, man's primary rule; We often feel bound by a law potential

To do those things which e'en our reasons fool. God, and he only, sees the consequential;

The mind well nurtured in religion's school Feels that He only-to whom all's obedientHas right to guide itself by the expedient.

Duty is man's first law, not satisfaction!

That satisfaction comes from this perform'd We grant! But should this be the prime attraction That led us to performance, soon inform'd By finding that we've miss'd the meed of action, We shall confess our error. Oft we're warm'd, By a strong spirit we cannot restrain, To deeds, which make all calculation vain. Had Regulus reason'd, whether on the scale Of use, in Rome, his faculties would most, Or Carthage-patriotism's cause avail,

He never had resumed his fatal post. Brutus, Virginius had they tried by tale

Their country's cause, had never been her boast.
Yet had it not these self-doon'd heroes seen,
Rome "the eternal city," ne'er had been!

Shall Christ submit upon the cross to bleed,
And man for all he does a reason ask?
Have martyrs died, and confessors, indeed,
That he must seek a why for every task?
If it be so, to prate we've little need

Of this enlighten'd age! Take off the mask!
If it be so, and ye'll find this our proud age,-
Its grand climacterick past is in its dotage.

Thy name, Thermopyla, had ne'er been heard,
Were not the Greeks wiser than our wise men.
I grant, that heaven alone to man transferr'd,
When he would raise up states for history's pen,
This more than mortal instinct! Yet absurd
It is (because, perhaps, our narrower ken
Their heights cannot descry; yea, and a curse
'Twill bring) to make a theory of the worse.

A theory for a declining race!

No, let us keep at least our lips from lies; If we have forfeited Truth's soaring grace, Let us not falsify her prodigies.

We well may wear a blush upon our face, From her past triumphs so t' apostatize In deeds; but let us not with this invent An infidelity of argument.

Go to Palmyra's ruins; visit Greece,

Behold! The wrecks of her magnificence
Seem left, in spite of man, thus to increase
The sting of satire on his impotence.
As to betray how soon man's glories cease;
Tombs, time defying, of the most pretence
But only make us feel with more surprise,
How mean the things they would immortalize !

The following is only a portion of a series of reminiscences equally luxurious and intense, and which are attended throughout by

that vein of reflection which our author never loses:

Oh, were the eye of youth a moment ours!

When every flower that gemm'd the various earth Brought down from Heaven enjoyment's genial showers! And every bird, of everlasting mirth

Prophesied to us in romantic bowers!

Love was the garniture, whose blameless birth Caused that each filmy web where dew-drops trembled, The gossamery haunt of elves resembled !

We can remember earliest days of spring,

When violets blue and white, and primrose pale,
Like callow nestlings 'neath their mother's wing
Each peep'd from under the broad leaf's green veil.
When streams look'd blue; and thin clouds clustering
O'er the wide empyrean did prevail,

Rising like incense from the breathing world,
Whose gracious aspect was with dew impearl'd.

When a soft moisture, steaming everywhere,

To the earth's countenance mellower hues imparted; When sylvan choristers self-poised in air,

Or perched on bows, in shrilly quiverings darted Their little raptures forth; when the warm glare

(While glancing lights backwards and forwards started, As if with meteors silver-sheathed 'twere flooded) Sultry, and silent, on the hill's turf brooded.

Oh in these moments we such joy have felt,
As if the earth were nothing but a shrine;
Where all, or awe inspired or made one melt
Gratefully towards its architect divine!
Father in future (as I once have dwelt
Within that very sanctuary of thine

When shapes, and sounds, seem'd as but modes of Thee 1)
That with experience gain'd were heaven to me!

Oft in the fulness of the joy ye give,

Oh, days of youth! in summer's noon-tide hours,
Did I a depth of quietness receive

From insects' drowsy hum, that all my powers
Would baffle to portray! Let them that live
In vacant solitude, speak from their bowers
What nameless pleasures letter'd ease may cheer,
Thee, Nature! bless'd to mark with eye and ear
Who can have watch'd the wild rose' blushing dye,
And seen what treasures its rich cups contain;
Who, of soft shades the fine variety,

From white to deepest flush of vermeil stain ↑
Who, when impearl'd with dew-drop's radiancy
Its petals breathed perfume, while he did strain
His very being, lest the sense should fail
T'imbibe each sweet its beauties did exhale ?

Who, amid lanes, on eve of summer days,

Which sheep brouse, could the thicket's wealth behold↑
The fragrant honey-suckle's bowery maze!
The furze bush, with its vegetable gold?

In every satin sheath that helps to raise
The fox-glove's cone, the figures manifold
With such a dainty exquisiteness wrought?—
Nor grant that thoughtful love they all have taught?

The daisy, cowslip, each have to them given-
The wood anemone, the strawberry wild,
Grass of Parnassus, meek as star of even:-
Bright, as the brightening eye of smiling child,
And bathed in blue transparency of heaven,
Veronica; the primrose pale, and mild ;-
Of charms (of which to speak no tongue is able)
Intercommunion incommunicable!

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When winter torrents, by the rain and snow,
Surlily dashing down the hills, were fed,
Its mighty mass of waters seem'd to flow
With deafening course precipitous: its bed
Rocky, such steep declivities did show

That towards us with a rapid course it sped,
Broken by frequent falls; thus did it roam
In whirlpools eddying, and convulsed with foam.
Flank'd were its banks with perpendicular rocks,
Whose scars enormous, sometimes gray and bare,
And sometimes clad with ash and gnarled oaks,
The birch, the hazel, pine, and holly were.
Their tawny leaves, the sport of winters' shocks,
Oft o'er its channel circled in the air;
While, on their tops, and midway up them, seen,
Lower'd cone-like firs and yews in gloomiest green.

So many voices from this river came

In summer, winter, autumn, or the spring; So many sounds accordant to each frame

Of Nature's aspect, (whether the storm's wing
Brooded on it, or pantingly, and tame,

The low breeze crisp'd its waters) that, to sing
Half of their tones, impossible! or tell
The listener's feelings from their viewless spell.
When fires gleam'd bright, and when the curtain'd room,
Well stock'd with books and music's implements,
When children's faces, dress'd in all the bloom
Of innocent enjoyments, deep content's
Deepest delight inspired; when nature's gloom
To the domesticated heart presents
(By consummate tranquillity possest)

Contrast, that might have stirr'd the dullest breast;

Yes,-in such hour as that-thy voice I've known,
Oh, hallow'd stream-fitly so named-(since tones
Of deepest melancholy swell'd upon

The breeze that bore it)-fearful as the groans
Of fierce night spirits! Yes, when tapers shone
Athwart the room (when, from their skyey thrones
Of ice-piled height abrupt, rush'd rudely forth,
Riding the blast, the tempests of the North ;)

Thy voice I've known to wake a dream of wonder!
For though 'twas loud, and wild with turbulence,
And absolute as is the deep-voiced thunder,
Such fine gradations mark'd its difference

Of audibility, one scarce could sunder

Its gradual swellings from the influence

Of harp Eolian, when, upon the breeze,
Floats in a stream its plaintive harmonies.

One might have thought, that spirits of the air
Warbled amid it in an undersong;

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exhibits the same great intellectual power and
ceaseless activity of thought, which character-
ize the Thoughts in London. Mr. Lloyd has
taken the common incident of one lover re-
signing his mistress to another, and the names
of his chief characters from Boccaccio, but, in
all other respects, the poem is original. Its
chief peculiarity is the manner in which it
reasons upon all the emotions which it por-
trays, especially on the progress of love in the
soul, with infinite nicety of discrimination, not
unlike that which Shakspeare has manifested
in his amatory poems. He accounts for the
finest shade of feeling, and analyzes its essence,
Iwith the same care, as though he were de-
monstrating a proposition of Euclid. He is as
minute in his delineation of all the variations
of the heart, as Richardson was in his narra-
tives of matters of fact;-and, like him, thus
throws such an air of truth over his statements,
that we can scarcely avoid receiving them as
authentic history. At the same time, he con-
ducts this process with so delicate a hand, and
touches his subjects with so deep a reverence
for humanity, that he teaches us to love our
nature the more from his masterly dissection.
By way of example of these remarks, we will
give part of the scene between a lover who
long has secretly been agitated by a passion
for the betrothed mistress of his friend, and the
object of his silent affection whom he has just
rescued from a watery grave-though it is
not perhaps the most beautiful passage of the
poem:

He is on land; on safe land is he come :

Sophronia's head he pillows on a stone:

A death-like paleness hath usurp'd her bloom;
Her head falls lapsing on his shoulder. None
Were there to give him aid! He fears her doom
Is seal'd for evermore! At last a groan
Burst from her livid lips, and then the word
"Titus" he heard, or fancied that he heard!---

Where was he then? From death to life restored!
From hell to heaven! To rapture from despair!
His band he now lays on that breast adored;
And now her pulse he feels; and now-(beware,
Beware, rash youth!) his lips draw in a hoard
Of perfume from her lips, which though they were
Still closed, yet oft the inarticulate sigh,

And oft one might have thought, that shrieks were there Issuing from thence, he drank with ecstasy.

Of spirits, driven for chastisement along

The invisible regions that above earth are.
All species seem'd of intonation (strong
To bind the soul, Imagination rouse,)
Conjured from preternatural prison-house.

But when the heavens are blue, and summer skies
Are pictured in thy wave's cerulean glances;
Then thy crisp stream its course so gayly plies,
Trips on so merrily in endless dances,
Such low sweet tone, fit for the time, does rise
From thy swift course, methinks, that it enhances
The hue of flowers which decorate thy banks,
While each one's freshness seems to pay thee thanks.
Solemn the mountains that the horizon close,

From whose drear verge thou seem'st to issue forth:
Sorcery might fitly dwell, one could suppose,

(Or any wondrous spell of heaven or earth,
Which e'en to name man's utterance not knows,)
Amid the forms that mark thy place of birth.
Thither direct your eye, and you will find
All that excites the imaginative mind!

The tale of Titus and Gisippus, which follows, while it is very interesting as a story,

Still were they cold; her hands were also cold;
Those hands he chafed and, perhaps to restore
To her chill, paly lips their warmth, so bold

He grew, he kiss'd those pale lips o'er and o'er.
Nay, to revive in their most perfect mould

Their wonted rubeous hue, he dared do more ;-
He glued his mouth to them, and breathed his breath
To die with her, or rescue her from death.-

Thou art undone, mad youth! The fire of love
Burn'd so intensely in his throbbing veins,
That, had she been a statue, he might prove
A new Pygmalion, and the icy chains
Of death defy. Well then might he remove
The torpor which her o'er-wrought frame sustains.-
If sweet, revival from such menaced death;
More sweet, revival by a lover's breath!

She feels the delicate influence through her thrill,
And with seal'd eye lay in a giddy trance,
Scarce dare she open them, when had her will
On this been bent, she felt the power to glance
Their lights on him. No, with a lingering skill—
Oh, blame her not!-she did awhile enhance

I

The bliss of that revival, by a feign'd
Or half-feign'd show of conflict still sustain'd.

At last, she look'd!--They looked!-Eye met with eye!
The whole was told! The lover and the loved,
The adored, and the adorer, ecstasy

Never till then experienced--swiftly proved!-
Thanks for his aid were a mean courtesy !

They were forgotten! Transport unreproved,
This was his guerdon; this his rich reward!
An hour's oblivion with Sophronía shared !

Then all the world was lost to them, in one
Fulness of unimaginable bliss!-
Infinity was with them and the zone

Unbound whence Venus sheds upon a kiss
Nectareous essences, and raptures known
Ne'er save to moments unprepared as this!
And in that earnest impulse did they find
Peace and intensity, alike combined!

To frame such joy, these things are requisite;
A lofty nature; the exalting stress
Of stimulating trials, which requite,

And antecedent sorrows doubly bless;
Consummate sympathies, which souls unite;

And a conjuncture, whence no longer press
Impulses-long as these delights we prove-
From one thing foreign to the world of love.

This could not last! Not merely would a word;--
A gesture would, a look, dissolve the charm!--
Could home be mention'd nor the thought restored,
To her remembrance of Gisippus' warm
And manly love? Bless'd be ye with your hour
Of transient bliss, and be ye safe from harm,
Ye fond, fond pair! But think not joys so high
Can be inwoven with reality!

At last a swift revulsion through her frame

And o'er her countenance stole: a sudden pause? Her eyes which had imbibed a piercing flame, Fell at once rayless; and her bosom draws One in-pent sigh; one look imploring came

O'er her fine face! Titus knew well the cause Of this so sudden change: he dared not speak; He dared not move; dared not its reasons seek!

Some minutes they were silent. Night advanced;
Titus towards himself Sophronia press'd,
But dumb he stood; upwards she faintly glanced
A look upbraiding, and upon his breast-
Gently reclining-lay like one entranced!
No longer was happiness her guest.
She starts! She cries "Gisippus!" all is told!
Cold fell the word, on bosoms still more cold!

They rose and crept along in silentness-
Sophronia reach'd her home, but nothing said,
E'en to her mother, of her past distress.

Her threshold past not Titus-Thence he fled,
Soon as in safety he the maid did guess,

Like to a madman madden'd more with dread! Nor ever of this night, or of its spell

Of mighty love, did he breathe a syllable!

We now take leave of Mr. Lloyd with peculiar gratitude for the rich materials for thought with which a perusal of his poems has endowed us. We shall look for his next appearance before the public with anxiety;-assured that his powers are not even yet fully developed to the world, and that he is destined to occupy a high station among the finest spirits of his age.

MR. OLDAKER ON MODERN IMPROVEMENTS.

[NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.]

MR. EDITOR-I trust that even in this age of improvement you will suffer one of the oldest of the old school to occupy a small space in your pages. A few words respecting myself will, however, be necessary to apologize for my opinions. Once I was among the gayest and sprightliest of youthful aspirants for fame and fortune. Being a second son, I was bred to the bar, and pursued my studies with great vigour and eager hope, in the Middle Temple. I loved, too, one of the fairest of her sex, and was beloved in return. My toils were sweetened by the delightful hope that they would procure me an income sufficient for the creditable support of the mistress of my soul. Alas! at the very moment when the unlooked-for devise of a large estate from a distant relative gave me affluence, she for whom alone I desired wealth, sunk under the attack of a fever into the grave. Religion enabled me to bear her loss with firmness, but I determined, for her sake, ever to remain a bachelor. Although composed and tranquil, I felt myself unable to endure the forms, or to taste the pleasures of London. I retired to my estate in the country, where I have lived for almost forty years in

the society of a maiden sister, happy if an old friend came for a few days to visit me, but chiefly delighting to cherish in silence the remembrance of my only love, and to anticipate the time when I shall be laid beside her. At last, a wish to settle an orphan nephew in my own profession, has compelled me to visit the scenes of my early days, and to mingle, for a short time, with the world. My resolution once taken, I felt a melancholy pleasure in the expectation of seeing the places with which I was once familiar, and which were ever linked in my mind with sweet and blighted hope. Every change has been to me as a shock. I have looked at large on society too, and there I see little in brilliant innovation to admire. Returned at last to my own fire-side, I sit down to throw together a few thoughts on the new and boasted Improvements, over which I mourn. If I should seem too querulous, let it be remembered, that my own happy days are long past, and that recollection is the sole earthly joy which is left me.

My old haunts have indeed suffered comparatively small mutation. The princely hall of the Middle Temple has the same venerable as

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