transports through the gloom and the cares of perfect reason and melancholy maturity. Once in a way, in a spring morning, perhaps, a gentleman of sober habits feels himself, on the first taste of the air, very unaccountably disposed.-If he be in the country, he falls incontinently to rolling in the grass, or takes to kicking his heels, or tries a short run with a jump at the end of it, with other caprices of motion, which have nothing at all to do with getting on, and for which, very likely, he heartily despises himself. He is soon relieved. His habitual feelings, and numberless little circumstances of his daily experience, are at hand to quell his romping vivacity at a moment's notice. He feels a twinge of the rheumatism, or recollects a bad bargain, and we see no more of his jumps.

For my part, whenever a fit of this sort of coltishness comes upon me, I not only indulge in it without remorse, but encourage it by all the means in my power. Oh! for the secret of commanding such a spirit at all times! the noble art of going through life with a hop and a skip! How grievous it is that we cannot always be boys; that we cannot grow from three feet to six, without an absolute change of nature! Lady Mary Wortley observes, with her usual liveliness, "It is a maxim with me, to be young as long as one can. There is nothing can pay one for that valuable ignorance which is the companion of youth; those sanguine, groundless hopes, and that lively vanity, which make up all the happiness of life. To my extreme mortification, I find myself growing wiser and wiser every day.' ""Tis folly to be wise," is not a mere conceit. But we can't help it. The most limited experience of life is sufficient to dispel the charming illusions of ignorance.Every day, from the hour of our birth, takes from us some happy error, never to return. The fugitive enchantments of our swaddling clothes are superseded by the frail wonders of short coats; these again we are soon taught to despise; and so, as we live, we are reasoned or ridiculed out of all our jocund mistakes, till the full-grown man sees things as they are, and is just wise enough to be miserable. Ah! a Jack-a-lan

thorn! At this hour of my sad maturity, I remember the throb of heart with which I used to welcome this metaphysical stranger; how I chuckled and crowed, as my dazzled eye followed him through the changeful figures of his fantastical harlequinade.-What it was, or how it came, it never occurred to me to inquire; it was regarded simply as one of the delicious accidents of life, sent on purpose to puzzle and to please. Soon, however, a tender instructor broke in upon my senseless delight, and explained to me the cause of the phenomenon. From that moment the sprightly meteor danced and gambolled unheeded over my head.Who remembers, without regret, the extinction of his thrilling belief on the subject of that grim couple in Guildhall, Gog and Magog? "And do they really come down? Why ride in a coach, when one is no longer convinced that the houses are running away after one another on each side of us? Who cares for Punch when he is nearly certain that he is not alive? and what do we go to a play for, after the time when we turned to mamma to beg her not to let the man stab the lady? And then the Man in the moon!—not to mention the precision with which you absolutely made out his face! Can we forget that such things were, and can we forgive ourselves that they cease to be?

But if we regret the changes which time and knowledge produce in the sights and sounds of the physical world as they affect our young fancies, how much more may we grieve for those which they establish in our moral attributes, our passions, affections, loves, and aversions! What a cost of honest nature goes to make up a gentleman! Talk of teaching dogs to dance-what is it, compared with the barbarity necessary to make a man, in the common sense of the term, polite? There is a politeness, the gift of nature; but it has many awkwardnesses and simplicities of feeling, gesture, and carriage, which must be removed or refined before it will pass current in the commerce of genteel life. See the poor biped turning out his toes in the stocks; see him under the slow torture of elaborating a bow, and then trace him through all the heart-aches of

his moral drilling, that system of disguising, cramping, twisting, and pinching, by which, inside and out, body and soul-Lord help us! what have we done to deserve all this?

The school-boy looks forward with rapture to the time when, says he, "I shall be my own master." Idle anticipation! His first essay, perhaps, as a free agent, is in the critical business of love; his young heart burning for the realities of that tender passion which he has doated on in the creations of poetry and romance. He is informed, however, that he must not love Miss Brown, for whom he is really dying, because she is only beautiful and amiable he must learn, nevertheless, he is told, to love the ugly Miss Jones, because she is rich, with the same sort of respect for his natural predilections as was shown when he was formerly taught to swallow rhubarb without making faces, like a man. He has a sincere friendship for an old crony of his school days, because he admires his talents and honours his principles; but he must learn to give him up, or see him at the risk of being disinherited, because he is wickedly of a family opposite to his father in political interests and opinions. He has a just indignation against a certain patriot who sold his conscience for a place; but he must learn to treat him with respect, because who knows what may happen. He is disposed to be on very easy terms with an agreeable foreigner who falls in his way; but he must learn to be shy and distant, because nobody knows him: while he must go premeditatedly to dine with Mr. Crump, notorious only for his dullness, because, in fact, he lives at the next door but one, and is an old acquaintance. He plays at whist, which he abhors, lest Mrs. Screw should be out of humour; drinks wine, which always makes him ill, because he is asked; goes to bed, when he is not sleepy, because it is eleven o'clock; and gets up, when dying for more sleep, because it is time to rise; sits shivering with cold, because it is June; faints for want of food, because dinner is not ready; or eats without hunger, because it is ready; sees visitors who only annoy him, because they call; and then annoys

himself and them, because he must return their visit; goes out when he would rather be within, because his horse is at the door; and stays at home when he is longing to be abroad, because it is only noon, and nobody goes out till two. And this is being his own master.

No pity for simple nature, straightforward will, and comfortable igno rance. Learn-learn-is the crytill we give up all we love, and bear all we hate. While yet untaught and unpractised, how eager are we to trust all that smile upon us; to give all we can to all that want; to love and to hate as the heart directs; to speak what we think, and all we think; to despise all that is despicable; to cherish those that have served us; to love our country for its own sake; and to love religion for God's sake. But alas! what sad havoc do instruction and fashion make with these native impulses and fresh desires. Confidence must learn to look about her; charity, to listen to reason and to self; love, how to keep a house over its head; hate, not to make faces; sincerity, to hold its tongue; scorn, to be polite; gratitude, to forget; patriotism, to get a place; and religion, to be a bishop.

"Men are but children of a larger growth," might be a high compli ment to human nature-but, unfortunately, it is not true. If old age could be regarded only as a condition of ripe infancy, it would be full of attraction and endearment; but, stamped with the impress of the world, with all its tricks, its shuffling wisdom and callous experience, it no more resembles the open soul of childhood, than a sallow and wrink led skin resembles the smoothness, and softness, and bloom of its smiling face. Once in a century, indeed, one meets a man who may seem to make out the vision of the poet-one who has borne the shock of conflicting interests and passions, untaught, or at least unchanged; who has pushed his way through the crowd of this villainous world, and yet, in every respect of moral simplicity, still wears his hib and tucker and eats with a spoon. Such a person makes but a bad figure "on Change," and would be out of all decent costume at court. He is much too young for the law,

and not quite old enough for the church. It is not impossible that you might find him among the curates; but never think of looking for him in a wig. I have known one individual of this description, and only one; a joyous baby of threescore, with whom I once went a bird-nesting in company with his grand-children. It was in a spring morning, early, when the dew still sparkled on the grass, and all nature was an image of youth and freshness. The grey head of my companion might be considered a little out of season; but his cheerful eye, his lively talk, and ready laugh, were in perfect keeping with the general scene. Time had set his mark upon him; but, like an old thorn, he blossomed to the last. Age had stiffened his joints, and hardened his sinews; but his affections were still full of spring and flexibility. He could not exactly play at leap-frog; but he could still stand and look on with wonderful agility. I would not have these considered as the happiest instances of his childishness. The simpleton, after sixty winters, was still warm-hearted and disinterested; had still faith in the natural kindliness of man; and an immoveable conviction, that to do good was to be happy, and to be happy, the end of his living. He was not ignorant of the use and the power of money; but somehow or other, it was seldom connected in his mind with any more dignified associations than bull's-eyes and sugarballs; and he never could be brought to admit, by any force of calculation, that it was a component part of love and friendship. He had many other peculiarities, which he cherished with a reference to his own feelings, rather than the opinion of the world. He had a shocking habit of laughing at grave faces, and at all sorts of gravities not founded in sincerity. He could look sad, and be sad, at a tale of distress, and had a laugh always ripe for a joke, or even the intention of one; but the artifices of affectation, mere physiognomical solemnity, or a smile discovering more teeth than pleasantry, excited in him no kind of emotion. His sister, who, in relation to him, was altogether of the Antipodes, was perpetually op

pressing him with the remark,— "Brother, you ought to know better." But, poor man, he never improvedlike all children he was very impatient of leading strings, and would be running alone though he got many a bump on the head for his pains. He died, I grieve to say, a martyr to a game at nine-pins.

Such characters, according to my observation, are among the rarest in the motley crowd of mankind. An "old buck," and an "old boy," are common phrases; but they apply rather to a system of blood and juices, than to any moral distinctions. A fine "old boy," is one somewhat shrunk, perhaps, in the legs, and a little protuberant in the belly, but active withal-who wears buckskins-is carnivorous, no flincher from the bottle, and can walk up stairs without touching the banisters.

I by no means wish to undervalue the merits of such a person.

It is said of him "that he wears surprisingly well," as one says of a pair of boots; and that, let me tell you, is something. The "old boy," however, whom I desiderate, is quite of another description; he would answer better, perhaps, to the world's denomination of an old fool; one whom a knave might cheat, or a hypocrite over-reach, somewhat more easily than they could practise upon other people; and with whom they might have gained all their ends, fairly and openly, by trusting to that benevolence which was as little able to deny as to suspect. The Vicar of Wakefield, when he suffered himself in his wisdom and experience to be cheated out of his horse by the cosmogony man, was certainly an old fool. His son Moses had the excuse of youth, and the fatalism of his thunder-and-lightning great coat-but the great Monogamist-what shall we say for him? This same Vicar, indeed, is a delicious example, in all respects, of the kind of old boy so much the object of my love and respect; and as I have mentioned him, I will leave the associations inseparable from his name to perfect and embellish for me the character that I have been aiming to illustrate. R. A.

THERE were a good many choice things in The Reflector, a quarterly magazine, of which only a few numbers were published. I have, however, a quarrel with the essay "on the claims of Propertius." This unfortunate poet had exclaimed in his fine manner (as I presume to call it,) At mihi, quod vivo detraxerit invida turba, Post obitum duplici fœnore reddet Honos. Omnia post obitum fingit majora vetustas; Majus ab exsequiis nomen in ora venit. (El. 1—21, b. 3.) What th' envious herd deny me whilst I live, Fame to my ashes shall with interest give ; From human ashes breaks a brighter flame, And tongues are loud to lend the dead a

name.

This prophecy has been verified to the letter: but the critic in the Reflector is extremely angry at this. I shall take the liberty to contest some of his positions.

One reason of a grudging dislike towards the poet of Umbria is the overweening fondness entertained by most classical readers towards his contemporary Tibullus. The praise of Propertius is uniformly construed into an indirect slur thrown upon Tibullus. We are indignantly reminded of the pedantry of courting a mistress by eternal allusions to the fables of mythology; and the Reflector sums up his proofs of the Propertian stiffness, and turgidity, and hardness, and what not, by an anathematizing clause, savouring of something like the odium theologicum: "I shall now conclude, wishing no other evil to the friends of Propertius, than that they may have no relish for the beauties of Tibullus." This is, to be sure, mightily conclusive.

But why, because I recur sometimes to one or two favourite passages of Tibullus, must I, to be consistent, absolutely toss Propertius out of my window? In this land of party, we can never be allowed to like one person or thing but we must hate another. A "good hater," as Johnson terms it, seems to be thought synonymous with a good patriot, a good churchman, a staunch dissenter, a sound classical scholar; and the man who loves his species and his books,

If

and has, moreover, a fondness for crossing his legs in an easy chair by the fire, or dangling them over a river bank, is sure to place himself in the predicament of Candide, who for his indifference as to how his mutton was drest, provided only it was tender, drew on himself the sputtering reproaches and fisty-cuff expostulations of two factions. This proselytizing and damnatory zeal pursues you from the library to the exhibition room, and erects a court of inquisition in the pit of the theatre. If your attention is arrested by the strong mental power of Rippingille's pencil, you are angrily twitched by the elbow and reminded of Wilkie. you venture to admire the gay boldfaced villainy and supple-smooth hypocrisy of Booth's Richard, I would not answer for your making your escape through the lobbies without being jostled by the people who choose to see nobody but Kean. And thus it is in books: if you can bear to read the tale of Anningait and Ajut, you must give up the Vision of Mirza: if you confess a partiality to some passages in the Essay on Man, it is quite clear you have no taste for Paradise Lost: if you talk of the dramatic vivacity of Propertius, then you shall never read another line of Tibullus as long as you live.

The head and front of offending" in Propertius, seems to be that he writes elegies in a different manner from Tibullus. Now this, which some think an unanswerable objection, I consider as a decisive recommendation. I am tired out with excellence only of one kind. It is indeed affirmed that Propertius possesses no excellence of any kind; but this I hope to disprove.

There is a double absurdity in this objection. It supposes both that the subject of elegy is restricted to an effusion of tender sentiment, and that the passion which Propertius usually describes is precisely similar to that felt and described by Tibullus; or that there is but one character of passion, and can be but one way of describing it. But the Elegy embraces as wide a latitude as the Gre

cian Idyll, or the Italian sonnet. It bends itself to invective as well as eulogy; to reproach as well as supplication. Propertius indulges in strokes of satire, and gives way to impulses of resentment, much more frequently than Tibullus. To object that his style is less easy and flowing, is to censure him for adapting his language and rhythm to the sentiment and to the occasion. The critic's designation of the verses of Propertius as "frigid," is as complete a misnomer as ever was hazarded in the spirit of sweeping dogmatical censure. They are often caustic, indignant, acrimonious, philosophically and morally vituperative; they are not therefore frigid. Let us take an instance or two.

How spirited is the following complaint of his mistress's capricious cupidity! (El. 24, 11, b. 2.)

Et modò pavonis caudæ flabella superbæ

Et manibus durâ frigus habere pilâ : Et cupit iratum talos me poscere eburnos,

Quæque nitent Sacrâ vilia dona viâ : Ah! peream, si me ista movent dispendia:

verùm

Fallaci dominæ jam pudet esse jocum. She'll now a gaudy peacock fan demand, Or the hard crystal ball, to cool her hand; For ivory dice with teazing coil entreat, And tawdry baubles of th' accursed street; Ah! let me die if I regard the cost; To be a jilt's diversion shames me most.

In such quotations as I shall have occasion to make, I shall transcribe the Latin text at full, that the original may not suffer from any inadequacy in the translation.

The taunt which he throws at his mistress, in allusion to a prætor who had supplanted him in her good graces, has a bitterness of irony which is any thing but frigid.

Quare, si sapis, oblatas ne desere messes,

Et stolidum pleno vellere carpe pecus. Deinde, ubi consumto restabit munere pau

per,

Dic, alias iterum naviget Illyrias.

(El. 16, 7, b. 2.) Then if you're wise the tempting harvest reap;

Shear to the quick; fleece, fleece the simple sheep;

And when the pauper fool stands bare, 66 pursue

Your voyage, friend!-the provinces !— adieu !"

The verse in which he lashes Cynthia's avarice,

Nec tetigit campi; nec mea Musa juvat: Ah pudeat, certè pudeat: nisi fortè (quod aiunt)

Turpis amor surdis auribus esse solet.
(El. 16, 33, b. 2.)

So many days are gone, and I in vain Would haunt the ring, the stage, or pen the strain;

Where is thy blush ?-but shameful passion still

Stoppeth the ears, conjure it as you will.

Of this concise sententiousness numerous single verses might be cited from his works, many of which take the shape of apophthegms: such as Una sit et cuivis femina multa mala.

A single woman is a troop of ills. Who choose to love, choose never to be free.

Slow comes the ruin, mightier is the fall.

This axiomatic condensation of thought and language is not a mark of "contemptible mediocrity."

Sudden and unlooked-for turns of feeling, and the transition from a tone of seeming acquiescence or compliment to passionate accusation, are commonly characteristic of this poet's style and manner, and are not easily reducible under the class of " dulness:" thus in detailing Cynthia's pleas for leaving Rome.

Scilicet umbrosis sordet Pompeia columnis

Porticus, aulæis nobilis Attalicis : Et creber platanis pariter surgentibus ordo, Flumina sopito quæque Marone cadunt; Et leviter Nymphis totâ crepitantibus urbe, Quum subitò Triton ore recondit aquam. (EL. 32, 11, b. 2.) Yes-Pompey's shadowy colonnade, inwrought With gorgeous tapestries, palls upon thy thought: