Our mother-church, with half-averted sight, Blushed as she blessed her griesly proselite; Hosannas rung through hell's tremendous borders, And Satan's self had thoughts of taking orders.

parish, and conducted his household with all the attention to comfort which an ample income warranted.-See Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. viii. p. 261.

IMPROMPTU;

SUGGESTED BY A VIEW, IN 1766, OF THE SEAT AND RUINS OF A DECEASED NOBLEMAN, AT KINGSGATE, KENT.

OLD, and abandoned by each venal friend,
Here H -d formed the pious resolution
To smuggle a few years, and strive to mend
A broken character and constitution.

On this congenial spot he fixed his choice;

5

Earl Goodwin trembled for his neighbouring sand ;

Here sea-gulls scream, and cormorants rejoice,
And mariners, though shipwrecked, dread to land.

a Lord Holland is said to have built his mansion on the model of Cicero's Villa Formiana, at Baiæ. The house itself is now gone to decay, and the mimic ruins which surrounded it are be come real ones.

Ver. 8. And mariners, though shipwrecked, dread to land.] Mr. Matthias ascribes the keen sarcasm which pervades this description to an impulse of virtuous indignation at some reports, mixed up with all the bitterness of the political prejudices of the time." He tells us, that he himself has visited the spot "with other views and other thoughts:" and in the summer aspect of the scene, he found beauties worth commemorating in a very elegant Latin Ode.

Here reign the blustering north and blighting east,

No tree is heard to whisper, bird to sing; Yet Nature could not furnish out the feast, Art he invokes new horrors still to bring.

Here mouldering fanes and battlements arise,
Turrets and arches nodding to their fall;
Unpeopled monasteries delude our eyes,
And mimic desolation covers all.

b

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15

"Ah!" said the sighing peer, "had B-te been true, Nor M-'s, R-'s, B-'s friendship vain,

Far better scenes than these had blest our view,
And realized the beauties which we feign.

Purged by the sword, and purified by fire, Then had we seen proud London's hated walls Owls would have hooted in St. Peter's choir, And foxes stunk and littered in St. Paul's."

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b The blank is filled up in the manuscript with the name of Bute; and those in the next line originally stood, Shelburne's, Rigby's, Calcraft's.

THE CANDIDATE;

OR,

THE CAMBRIDGE COURTSHIPa.

WHEN sly Jemmy Twitcher had smugged up his face,
With a lick of court white-wash, and pious grimace,
A wooing he went, where three sisters of old
In harmless society guttle and scold.

"Lord! sister," says Physic to Law, "I declare, Such a sheep-biting look, such a pick-pocket air! Not I for the Indies :-you know I'm no prude,But his name is a shame,—and his eyes are so lewd! Then he shambles and straddles so oddly-I fearNo-at our time of life 'twould be silly, my dear.” "I don't know," says Law, "but methinks for his look,

'Tis just like the picture in Rochester's book;
Then his character, Phyzzy,-his morals—his life—
When she died, I can't tell, but he once had a wife.
They say he's no Christian, loves drinking and wg,
And all the town rings of his swearing and roaring!

a The occasion of these lines was an active canvass, begun by Lord Sandwich, for the office of High Steward to the University of Cambridge.

His lying and filching, and Newgate-bird tricks ;— Not I-for a coronet, chariot and six."

Divinity heard, between waking and dozing, Her sisters denying, and Jemmy proposing: From table she'rose, and with bumper in hand, She stroked up her belly, and stroked down her band— "What a pother is here about wenching and roaring! Why, David loved catches, and Solomon w-g: Did not Israel filch from the Egyptians of old Their jewels of silver and jewels of gold? The prophet of Bethel, we read, told a lie: He drinks-so did Noah ;-he swears-so do I: To reject him for such peccadillos, were odd; Besides, he repents-for he talks about G**

TO JEMMY.

"Never hang down your head, you poor penitent elf, Come buss me-I'll be Mrs. Twitcher myself.”