Tho' darkness thickens, and no fav'ring ray The treacherous ocean and the darken'd sky. M. MR. REFLECTOR, As your Miscellany professes to please scholars as well as lighter readers, you may perhaps have no objection to insert, as in a former number, a few Latin verses; which if they do not please, may at any rate amuse your learned friends, as a subject on which they may exercise their critical sagacity. The verses do not affect poetry: they have no imagination, nor do they pretend even to fancy. Their utmost aim is prettiness; and perhaps your more friendly readers may think that they have not altogether failed in catching the turns of the Latin style of versification. As their merit, if any, consists entirely in their style and diction, they are not worthy of translation; but as now-a-days almost every family has one member in it who can read Latin, any such gentleman may if he pleases construe the lines for the amusement of his sister or "chere amie." I will not quarrel with him, as the learned have with Pope, if he should throw into his translation " any Ovidian graces not to be found in the original." T. B. SAPPHIC VERSES ON SENDING A BOUQUET TO A LADY. Sic positæ quoniam suaves miscetis odores. I, puer, plantâ celeri pererra, Digna puella. Sint Rosæ flores Veneris rubentes Vallis honores. Num Num legens mittam violas? odores Lumina Lauræ. O meâ vitâ mihi plus amata, Hæc tibi mittam? Cur nisi ut sint suave-olens amoris Stringat Imago. Cur te amem? Non, non quia pulchra, quamvi, Pectus ignarum mali et intimo mens Casta recessu. Forma marcebit; fugient Cupido Optima Virtus. TO THE EDITOR OF THE REFLECTOR. SIR, I AM a gentleman, upon the authority of no less a fountain of honour than your Shakespeare, who was accustomed to deal with me in images; and I will be bold to say, that I am one of the most ill-used gentlemen in Christendom, as I am constrained to call it, in order to express my meaning, although I have about as great an affection for Christianity, as I have for holy water. The truth is, that it is not in England alone, that I am both feared and despised, trembled at and yet trifled with, held in abhorrence and in derision, now believed to exist and treated as a bugbear, and now believed to be a creature of the imagination and treated as a humbug. Man illuminates his room, sets wine on his table, bids his friends; and in the hilarity of the festive board, my name is sported with by every tongue, and my existence denied by universal acclamation. The bottle becomes empty, the lights are extinguished, the guests separate; and each retires to his bed, and thinks "How charming if there's no such person !" But it is not only by the gay that I am voted a non-entity. The unthinking churchman, indeed, has some pretence for getting rid of me, for his godfathers and godmothers have promised that he should all that I complain of is, that, although he renounces me, he still sticks to the world and the flesh. But what galls me most is, that the freethinking unitarian should write pamphlets to prove my non-existence, and that posting-bills announcing that that question will be mooted at a debating society, should be stuck up all over the very town in which I am proverbially known to hold my constant residence. You will be surprised, Mr. Reflector, to learn that, although I am at all times to be found in the bosom of London, there associating chiefly among lawyers and tailors, yet I frequently fly over Lincoln Minster, and eye that magnificent building askance. But the most prominent trait in my character is, that I am (principally with those bad, bold men, who affect to deny my existence) the never-failing receptacle and depository for whatever annoys or discommodes them, their very selves upon great provocation. All these persons and things I am twenty times a day desired to take, or they are wished at me; and when I come for them, I find, as old Chaucer tells the story, The cherl spake a thing, but he thought another: Ariosto tells us, that whatsoever is lost on earth is treasured in the moon. I have often thought of the far greater treasures I should have, if I could lay my claws upon every thing which has been abandoned to me, in the momentary passion of men of property. For instance, I should have the hindmost man in almost every race, and a perfect seraglio of all those hard-hearted mistresses, whose lovers are of Sir John Suckling's mind. My seclusion from society, by those who do acknowledge my existence, has been as great a source of mortification to me as the contempt of those who do not. A distinction is, by this class of people, taken between me" and all;" and when they get into any trouble, or their affairs go in the least degree wrong, they call it me "and all," or they pretend, that they have me" and all" to pay, although they very well know that, whoever else may have any demands upon them, I never touch a penny of their money. On the contrary, I often put them in the way of reimbursing themselves, *The Frere's Tale. selves; and this kind of acknowledgment of my debt is all I can ever procure in return, although they make a great talk about giving me my due. I have heard it said, that he who owns himself to be a creditor, half satisfies the demand upon him; and it is in this manner, I suppose, that my numerous debtors think, by making me the acknowledgment twice, to pay me in full. But I never could understand what was meant by the threat of playing me with such-a-one. Do they take me for a pipe? as the wearer of the inky cloak says; and is this the tune they call the Black Joke? I am afraid they will find me neither harmonious, nor a joke. I understand, too, that the beaux and belles of your watering-places, have lately had the temerity to designate a whirling, roaring toy with my name, because it is played upon two sticks; and it is known in England, that Asmodeus, of our frater nity, who walks with such a support, once appeared in the city of Madrid. I am now therefore, forsooth, tossed about from the stick and the string of one fool to those of another, and am literally "easier to be played than a pipe:" so that when I wish to impress the world with my cunning as a pleader, I am compli mented upon my skill as a rope-dancer. While I am upon this subject, I will just mention a playing, the discord of which is much more congenial to my nature; when a man drums his fingers upon a table, he has irrecoverably enlisted as my soldier, and is said to beat my tattoo. An adjective has been formed, Sir, out of the primitive of my name; and it is used with the most unbounded profusion to qualify things, good, bad, hot, cold, moist or dry. And I must not forget the verb to which my name, with the help of the syllable be, has stood father, although that is always applied to describe a disagreeable situation. But there is one occasion upon which my enemies cannot avoid paying me "due honour for my burning throne:" when they wish to describe the extraordinary prowess, gallantry, or desperation of any given man, they affirm that he is one of my rank,-they call him one of my species" of a fellow," by which they mean that he is worthy to be a fellow of mine; and, indeed, whenever they meet with any thing wonderful or vast in the works of Nature, a magnitudinous peak, a stupendous natural bridge from mountain to mountain, or a profound dyke, they constantly speak of it as my property, this real property being the only inheritance or acquisition which they will suffer me to retain. An idea of me is also connected in the minds of men with the unexpected and surprizing, as well as the wonderful; and my name generally follows the exclamation, What! from the mouths of the free-talkers, whom I have before described, or pre cedes the exclamations, He, She or It is! And when they are very incredulous, they affirm, that if the fact be as it is stated, or a's as they do not think it is, I am in it. Nay, I recollect a wag of former days, who prefixed as a title to his drama, "If this be not a good play, that I was in it," and he contrived to introduce me into the business of the scene, to make his word good, just as I have been introduced upon the same stage with Doctor Faustus, or as it may be said of this REFLECTOR, if it be not a good number. It would be endless to recount to you all the ridiculous situations, in which the poets and other triflers have placed me; one had the levity to say, that I once made my debut in a town in Scotland, in the capacity of a fiddler, and condescended to lead off a dance with an exciseman; and another had the hardihood to accuse me of being subject to the infirmity of sickness, in which condition, he represented me to having thoughts of turning monk, and to have scouted the idea when I convalesced. And the turn of the epigram which was written on this occasion, leads me to notice a peculiar sense in which my name is used: it is that of a negation, and seems to keep up the idea of my nonexistence: I am made to answer to not, when used before the words a bit, or, indeed, before any noun; and the clergy themselves have not blushed to acknowledge my services in this capacity: Dean Swift is full of me; and Dean Aldrich prayed me in aid, when he wrote the last couplet of that merry catch called, "Christ Church Bells," and wished to intimate that not a man would leave his can, "Till he heard the mighty Tom." Such of the clergy as are more precise and affected, however, will mince my name down into "the deuce," which has always appeared to me to be a corruption of the Latin, for a name, which I" tremble" to "believe" in, and will neither take between my lips, nor let slip from my pen. Women, too, have either recourse to this metonymy, or spell my name with an i in the first syllable, which gives the word a sweet, pretty, innocent sound, and such as always carries with it a good sense when applied to the gallantries of the other sex. To tire your patience no longer, I shall only mention one further trait in my character; and this is that, though I am very much doubted myself, I am supposed to doubt nothing of others; and whenever a man boasts of a readiness to perform what it is his intent to do, he is cut short, by an exclamation, that I am to doubt him. This practice obtains in Scotland more than in England. I had a good deal to say in answer to the oppugners of my existence and my residence, in the way of interrogatory, why every piece of hot cookery goes by my name, and why certain gaming-houses are called after that of my abode; but, lest the subject should grow too serious, I hasten to subscribe myself, in jest, Mr. Reflector, your sincere friend, THE DEVIL. 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