And all things rose a penny in a shilling.

Meanwhile, from window and from door, in haste "Accommodation bills" kept coming down, Gladding "the world of letters" in that town.

Each day poured in new coach-fulls of new cits,
Flying from London smoke and dust annoying,
Unmarried Misses hoping to make hits,
And new-wed couples fresh from Tunbridge toy-
ing,

Lacemen and placemen, ministers and wits,
And quakers of both sexes, much enjoying
A morning's reading by the ocean's rim,
That sect delighting in the sea's broad brim.

And lo! amongst all these appeared a creature,
So small, he almost might a twin have been

With Miss Crachami

Yet well proportioned

dwarfish quite in stature, neither fat nor lean,

His face of marvellously pleasant feature,

So short and sweet a man was never seen-
All thought him charming at the first beginning-
Alas, ere long they found him far too winning!

He seemed in love with chance and chance

repaid

His ardent passion with her fondest smile,
The sunshine of good luck, without a shade,
He staked and won- and won and staked

bile

- the

[too

It stirred of many a man and many a maid,
To see at every venture how that vile
Small gambler snatched and how he won them
A living Pam, omnipotent at loo!

Miss Wiggins set her heart upon a box,

'Twas handsome, rosewood, and inlaid with brass, And dreamt three times she garnished it with

stocks

Of needles, silks, and cottons

She lost it wide awake.

but alas!

We thought Miss Cox

Was lucky but she saw three caddies pass

To that small imp; — no living luck could loo

him!

Sir Stamford would have lost his Raffles to him!

And so he climbed. and rode, and won - and

walked,

The wondrous topic of the curious swarm

That haunted the Parade. Many were balked Of notoriety by that small form

Pacing it up and down:

some even talked

Stepped in-one Friday, at the close of dayAnd every head was turned another way

Watching the grander guest. It seemed to rise
Bulky and slow upon the southern brink
Of the horizon-fanned by sultry sighs-
So black and threatening, I cannot think
Of any simile, except the skies

Miss Wiggins sometimes shades in Indian ink
Miss-shapen blotches of such heavy vapour,
They seem a deal more solid than her paper.

As for the sea, it did not fret, and rave,
And tear its waves to tatters, and so dash on
The stony-hearted beach; some bards would

have

--

It always rampant, in that idle fashion,-
Whereas the waves rolled in, subdued and grave,
Like schoolboys, when the master's in a passion,
Who meekly settle in and take their places,
With a very quiet awe on all their faces.

Some love to draw the ocean with a head,

Like troubled table-beer, and make it bounce, And froth, and roar, and fling, but this, I've

said,

Surged in scarce rougher than a lady's flounce :
But then, a grander contrast thus it bred
With the wild welkin, seeming to pronounce
Something more awful in the serious ear,
As one would whisper that a lion's near

Who just begins to roar: so the hoarse thunder Growled long - but low a prelude note of

death,

As if the stifling clouds yet kept it under,
But still it muttered to the sea beneath
Such a continued peal, as made us wonder
It did not pause more oft to take its breath,
Whilst we were panting with the sultry weather,
And hardly cared to wed two words together,

But watched the surly advent of the storm, Much as the brown-cheeked planters of Barbadoes Must watch a rising of the Negro swarm: Meantime it steered, like Odin's old Armadas, Right on our coast; a dismal, coal-black form ;

Many proud gaits were quelled and all bravadoes

Of folly ceased- and sundry idle jokers

Went home to cover up their tongs and pokers.

So fierce the lightning flashed. In all their days The oldest smugglers had not seen such flashing, And they are used to many a pretty blaze,

To keep their Hollands from an awkward clashing With hostile cutters in our creeks and bays: And truly one could think without much lashing The fancy, that those coasting clouds so awful And black, were fraught with spirits as unlawful.

Parade gay

The
Vanished

tions,―

thin grew

- all the fair crowd

as if they knew their own attrac

For now the lightning through a near hand cloud

Began to make some very crooked fractions
Only some few remained that were not cowed,
A few rough sailors, who had been in actions,
And sundry boatmen, that with quick yeo's,
Lest it should blow,- were pulling up the Rose:

(No flower, but a boat) - some more hauling The Regent by the head: another crew

With that same cry peculiar to their calling —
Were heaving up the Hope:- and as they knew
The very gods themselves oft get a mauling
In their own realms, the seamen wisely drew
The Neptune rather higher on the beach,
That he might lie beyond his billows' reach.

And now the storm, with its despotic power
Had all usurped the azure of the skies,
Making our daylight darker by an hour,
And some few drops — of an unusual size