How different the even tenor of a gentle sentiment like this, from the distracting alternations of a passion the very quintessence of which resides in sighs and torments,-spasimando spasimar,-which finds no rhyme for heart but dart or smart : a zephyr to a sirocco, the Bay of Naples to the Bay of Biscay, O!" Ut maris tranquillitas intelligitur, nullâ, ne minimâ quidem, aurâ fluctus commovente: sic animi quietus et placatus status cernitur, quum pertubatio nulla est quâ moveri queat." I trust my readers are conscious of the clever circumbendibus by which I have contrived to make it manifest, without actually announcing so unpleasant a fact, that the dangerous vivacities of Cecil the coxcomb were subsiding;i. e. that I had attained my fortieth year. I shall be extremely obliged to the junior branches of my readers to refrain from a smile. -Walter Scott did not become a poet till he was eight and twenty: it would be invi dious to specify which of the mighty conquerors of the day, became a Lovelace at fortytwo! END OF VOL. I. G. NORMAN, PRINTER, MAIDEN LANE, COVENT GARDEN. |