Well, Sir, I harangued him for some time upon the advantages of my scheme, to which he gave his cordial assent. Finally, I observed that, of course, it would not be very expensive.- Expensive!' he said, 'Oh yes! very!—and he walked off. There was liberality!

"Next I besieged Will Wingham. I made my approaches, as before, with great caution, and at last summoned the garrison to surrender.- Books!' he exclaimed, I hav'n't one but a Greek Grammar, with all Syntax out.' And do you think,' I resumed, that an Etonian can do well without them ?' 'Do well!' he said, 'Oh yes! very!'-and he laughed. There was a wish for improvement !

"Now, my good Peregrine," continued the old Gentleman, putting his feet up upon the hobs of my fire, and looking very argumentative, "what do you say to all this ?"

The old Gentleman is

Se puero."

"Laudator temporis acti

He left the room piqued, when we hurt his prejudices by replying, "Nothing, Sir, but that the Etonians of 1821 are not, we will hope, the Etonians of 17-"

P. C.

PEREGRINE'S SCRAP-BOOK.

NO. IV.

March 1. Upon looking over No V., I find that an allusion to the "London Magazine," bears an unfeeling appearance, as connected with the unfortunate death of Mr. Scott. I trust that our friends need not be assured, that the paragraph in question was written and sent to press before the melancholy catastrophe was apprehended.

I must apologize to the author of "Evening," for the long period during which it has been lying in my desk. And I must also apologize for the necessity which even now prevents me from giving so much space to the Poem as I could wish. It was my intention that it should have stood as a separate article; but I find myself unable to do more than to quote from it in the Scrap-Book. My first extract is the exordium of the work.

"The glowing orb descends; the beam of day

That crown'd the summit of meridian sky,
Sheds from the western tract a mellow'd ray,
And tints the azure with a golden dye,
Slow sinking to the ocean ;-'t is a way

That Phoebus often takes to wish' good-by,'
A certain sign that he 's engaged to meet his
Submarine friends, and drink his tea with Thetis.

Suppose him then loud knocking at the door,

Suppose all Neptune's household in commotion,
Tritons and Nymphs, and Nereids twenty score,
The progeny of Tethys and the Ocean;

Suppose at last-all ceremony o'er

Apollo seated on an easy cushion ;—

Though some, who think themselves supremely knowing,
Affirm he never rests, but still keeps going.

"And when, upon the bright horizon gleaming,
He pours his parted radiance o'er the sea,
They'll tell you gravely that it's all a seeming,

He does not really venture in, not he!
And when he does go down, he is not dreaming
Of chairs and tables, coffee-pots and tea,
Nor will his weary limbs on couch or tripod ease
But gallops off, and visits the Antipodes.

"Well! be that as it may!"

The author proceeds to give a humorous prospectus of his intended work, after which he thus resumes the thread of his description :--

"Phœbus has gone down,

Still glows that vivid radiance soon to fade;

And still those dazzling clouds, that form'd a throne
To the descending monarch, are array'd

In hues of splendor, and, though destined soon

To darken in the night's triumphant shade,
Linger awhile, clad in their golden die,
The last bright beam of parted majesty.

"And fainter now is that effulgence proud,

And heavier now, o'er Ocean's purple tide,
Spreads the thick gloom, and darker now the shroud
That hangs upon the distant mountain's side;
And deeper blushes streak the western cloud,
And cooler zephyrs o'er the ripple glide;
And calmer now, in this still hour of rest,
Are the dark feelings of a troubled breast.

"I'm not describing now, you may suppose,
Things that re ipsâ stand before my eyes;
One Evening is a deal too short, Heav'n knows,
To write two hundred verses for a prize!*

*Here you must know this is the subject set

At Cambridge by Vice-Chancellor and Co.;
And all must write on it that want to get

A medal!-but this metre will not do

But yet I have beheld some evenings close,
As fair as warmest fancy can devise ;
Two, in particular, I now remember,

One was last August—t'other in September.”

The first of the said Evenings the Poet describes as having been witnessed at Salisbury; but I must only allow myself the pleasure of transcribing the second :

"The other was at Plymouth, as I said,

Or rather near it, as shall soon be shown;
And that I shall remember till I'm dead,
For while I watch'd the Sun, I'll fairly own,
I rather trembled at the haste he made;

And though he look'd so charming going down,
I'd reasons then (no reasons could be stronger)
To wish he'd keep above a little longer.

"For at the time that he was beaming reddest on
The distant confines of the western ocean,

I was half-way 'twixt Plymouth and the Eddystone-
How far that 's out at sea I've no clear notion:
It is the most ingenious fabric made o' stone;
But I shall ne'er again be so Boeotian

As to go out to see it, solus ipse,

At least, with but two boatmen—and one tipsy.

"And now I could describe, in colours glowing,

Our fears, our troubles, and our piteous plight ;
And how the boatmen soon grew tired of rowing,
And how we'd an enormous appetite;

I'in much afraid, but I'm not certain yet

Whether to send my Poem in or no;

Though, to be sure, I have not found a precedent,*

But then I've certainly not long been resident.-Author's note.

* And to be sure you nade not say that now, for an't I coming up to Cambridge next year, and won't I give you a precedent, by writing in the same metre myself?

P. O'Connor.

And how we wisely had neglected stowing

Provisions, but these matters would invite
Me to a long digression from my subject,
Which to avoid has always been my object.

"And yet, considering our little crew,

The boat was managed wonderfully well;
She was got safely in with much ado,

Although there chanced to be a heavy swell :
The many dangers we had then pass'd through,
Believe me, I am quite afraid to tell;
When I got home I wrote a pretty Sonnet,
Just now I haven't time to dwell upon it.”

The Poet then eulogizes the Moon; makes mention of her appearance in the Covent-Garden Pantomime; sports the usual digressions on the lover, the flute, the nightingale, the village-bell, and the old gray tower. He next, by way of a lick at the times, notices, with severe reprehension, the prevailing custom of dining late in the evening; and threatens us with a serious article upon the subject, (which I hope to see soon.) He draws a delightful contrast between the purity of ancient, and the depravity of modern times; averring that

"Not thus in good old times it used to be,

When honest people were all drunk by Three !"

He then reverts to the descriptive, and gives an inimitable enumeration of the heavenly bodies:

"And now the stars shine brightly; the great Bear,
The little Do., not to say the Pleiades,

Andromeda, Cassiopeia's chair,

Orion, and Arcturus, and the Hyades;
The Pole-star too, &c. *

He then informs the reader that Astronomy is not among his acquirements, and laments his backwardness in scientific studies; makes good resolutions for the fu