"The moon's at full-and I am in her thought-
No doubt I do believe it in my soul !"
Here he threw up his head and gave a snort
Like a young horse first harnessed to a pole;
"The moon is full-ay, so is this d-d bowl!"
And, grinning like the sourest of curmudgeons,
Globe-water-fishes-he dashed down the whole,
Strewing the carpet with the gasping gudgeons;
Men do the strangest things in such love-dudgeons.

"I fill her thoughts-her memory's vice gerent?
No, no-some paltry puppy-three weeks old-
And round as Norval's shield"-thus incoherent
His fancies grew as he went on to scold;
So stormy waves are into breakers rolled,
Worked up
at last to mere chaotic wroth-

This-that-heads-tails--thoughts jumbled uncontrolled

As onions, turnips, meat, in boiling broth,
By turns bob up, and splutter in the froth.

"Fool that I was to let a baby face

A full one-like a hunter's-round and red—

Ass that I am, to give her more a place

Within this heart"-and here he struck his head. "Sdeath are the almanac-compilers dead?

But no 'tis all an artifice-a trick,

Some newer face-some dandy underbred—
Well-be it so-of all the sex I'm sick!"
Here Juno wondered why she got a kick.

"The moon is full'-where's her infernal scrawl?
'And you are in my thought: that silver ray

Will ever your dear image thus recall'

My image? Mine! She'd barter it away

For Pretty Poll's on an Italian's tray!

Three weeks, full weeks-it is too plain-too bad-
Too gross and palpable! Oh cursed day!
My senses have not crazed-but if they had—
Such moons would worry a Mad Doctor mad!

"Oh Nature! wherefore did you frame a lip

So fair for falsehood? Wherefore have you dressed Deceit so angel-like?" With sudden rip

He tore six new buff buttons from his vest, And groped with hand impetuous at his breast, As if some flea from Juno's fleecy curls

Had skipped to batten on a human chest,

But no-the hand comes forth, and down it hurls
A lady's miniature beset with pearls.

Yet long upon the floor it did not tarry,

Before another outrage could be planned:
Poor Juno, who had learned to fetch and carry.
Picked up and brought it to her master's hand,
Who seized it, and the mimic features scanned;
Yet not with the old loving ardent drouth,

He only saw in that fair face, so bland,

Look how he would at it, East, West, North, South, moon, a full one, with eyes, nose, and mouth.

A

"I'll go to her,"-herewith his hat he touched,

And

gave his arm a most heroic brandish;

"But no-I'll write"-and here a spoon he clutched,

And rammed it with such fury in the standish,

A sable flood, like Niger the outlandish,

Came rushing forth-Oh Antics and Buffoons!

Ye never danced a caper so ran-tan-dish;

He jumped, thumped-tore-swore, more than ten dragoons At all nights, noons, moons, spoons, and pantaloons!

But soon ashamed, or weary, of such dancing,
Without a Collinet's or Weippert's band,
His rampant arms and legs left off their prancing,
And down he sat again, with pen in hand,
Not fiddle-headed, or King's pattern grand,
But one of Bramah's patent Caligraphics;
And many a sheet it spoiled before he planned
A likely letter. Used to pure seraphics,
Philippics sounded strangely after Sapphics.

Long while he rocked like Yankee in his chair,
Staring as he would stare the wainscot through,
And then he thrust his fingers in his hair,

And set his crest up like a cockatoo ;

And trampled with his hoofs, a mere Yahoo:
At last, with many a tragic frown and start,
He penned a billet, very far from doux,
"T was sour, severe-but think of a man's smart
Writing with lunar caustic on his heart!

The letter done and closed, he lit his taper,
And sealing, as it were, his other mocks,
He stamped a grave device upon the paper,
No Cupid toying with his Psyche's locks,
But some stern head of the old Stoic stocks-
Then, fiercely striding through the staring streets,
He dropped the bitter missive in a box,
Beneath the cakes, and tarts, and sugared treats,
In Mrs. Smelling's window-full of sweets.

Soon sped the letter-thanks to modern plans,
Our English mails run little in the style
Of those great German wild-beast caravans,
Eil-wagens-though they do not "go like ile,"

But take a good twelve minutes to the mile

On Monday morning, just at ten o'clock,

As Ellen hummed "The Young May Moon" the while,

Her ear was startled by that double knock

Which thrills the nerves like an electric shock !

Her right hand instantly forgot its cunning,
And down into the street it dropped, or flung,
Right on the hat and wig of Mr. Gunning,

The jug that o'er her ten-week-stocks had hung;
Then down the stairs by twos and threes she sprung,
And through the passage like a burglar darted.

Alas! how sanguine are the fond and young-
She little thought, when with the coin she parted,
She paid a sixpence to be broken-hearted!

Too dear at any price-had she but paid

Nothing and taken discount, it was dear;
Yet, worthless as it was, the sweet-lipped maid
Oft kissed the letter in her brief career
Between the lower and the upper sphere,
Where, seated in a study bistre-brown,

She tried to pierce a mystery as clear
As that I once saw puzzling a young clown-
Reading Made Easy," but turned upside down.

Yet Ellen, like most misses in the land,

Had sipped sky blue, through certain of her teens, At one of those establishments which stand

In highways, byways, squares, and village greens; -a name that always means 'T was called "The Grove," Two poplars stand like sentries at the gateEach window had its close Venetian screens And Holland blind, to keep in a cool state The twenty-four Young Ladies of Miss Bate.

But when the screens were left unclosed by chance,
The blinds not down, as if Miss B. were dead,
Each upper window to a passing glance

Revealed a little dimity white bed;

Each lower one a cropped or curly head ;

And thrice a week, for soul's and health's economies,
Along the road the twenty-four were led,

Like coupled hounds, whipped in by two she-dominies
With faces rather graver than Melpomene's.

And thus their studies they pursued:-On Sunday,
Beef, collects, batter, texts from Dr. Price;

Mutton, French, pancakes, grammar-of a Monday;
Tuesday—hard dumplings, globes, Chapone's Advice;
Wednesday-fancy-work, rice-milk (no spice);
Thursday-pork, dancing, currant-bolsters, reading;
Friday-beef, Mr. Butler, and plain rice;
Saturday-scraps, short lessons and short feeding,
Stocks, back-boards, hash, steel-collars, and good breeding.

From this repertory of female learning

Came Ellen once a quarter, always fatter!

To gratify the eyes of parents yearning.

"T was evident in bolsters, beef, and batter,

Hard dumplings, and rice-milk, she did not smatter, But heartily, as Jenkins says, "demollidge;"

But as for any learning, not to flatter,

As often happens when girls leave their college,
She had done nothing but grow out of knowledge.

At Long Division sums she had no chance,
And History was quite as bad a balk ;
Her French it was too small for Petty France,

And Priscian suffered in her English talk: