For matters cannot well be worse

Than when the thief says, 'Guard your purse.

I cannot trust your counsel, friend:

It surely hides some wicked end."

Said Satan, "Near the throne of God,
In ages past, we devils trod;

Angels of light, to us 'twas given

To guide each wandering foot to Heaven;

Not wholly lost is that first love,

Nor those pure tastes we knew above.

Roaming across a continent,

The Tartar moves his shifting tent,

But never quite forgets the day
When in his father's arms he lay;
So we, once bathed in love divine,
Recall the taste of that rich wine.
God's finger rested on my brow,-
That magic touch, I feel it now!

I fell, 'tis true,—Oh, ask not why!
For still to God I turn my eye;

It was a chance by which I fell :
Another takes me back to hell.
'Twas but my envy of mankind,
The envy of a loving mind.

Jealous of men, I could not bear
God's love with this new race to share.

But yet God's tables open stand,

His guests flock in from every land.

Some kind act toward the race of men

May toss us into heaven again.

A game of chess is all we see,—

And God the player, pieces we.

White, black,-queen, pawn,-'tis all the same;

For on both sides he plays the game.

Moved to and fro, from good to ill,
We rise and fall as suits his will."

The Caliph said, "If this be so
I know not; but thy guile I know;
For how can I thy words believe,
When even GoD thou didst deceive?

A sea of lies art thou,-our sin,
Only a drop that sea within."

"Not so," said Satan: "I serve God,
His angel now, and now his rod.

In tempting, I both bless and curse,
Make good men better, bad men worse.
Good coin is mixed with bad, my brother,
I but distinguish one from th' other."
"Granted," the Caliph said; "but still
You never tempt to good, but ill.

Tell, then, the truth; for well I know
You come as my most deadly foe."
Loud laughed the fiend. "You know me well;
Therefore my purpose will I tell:

If you had missed your prayer, I knew

A swift repentance would ensue;

And such repentance would have been

A good, outweighing far the sin.

I chose this humbleness divine,
Born out of fault, should not be thine;
Preferring prayers elate with pride,
To sin with penitence allied."

Epigrams.

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAM ON EPIGRAMS.

Omnis epigramma, sit instar apis; sit aculeus illi,
Sint sua mella, sit et corporis exigui.

[Three things must epigrams, like bees, have all,—
A sting, and honey, and a body small.]

MIDAS AND MODERN STATESMEN.

Midas, they say, possessed the art, of old,

Of turning whatsoe'er he touched to gold.

This, modern statesmen can reverse with ease;

Touch them with gold, they'll turn to what you please.

INSCRIBED ON A STATUE TO SLEEP.

Somne levis, quanquam certissima mortis imago,
Consortem cupio te tamen esse tori,

Alma quies, optata, veni, nam sic sine vita

Vivere quam suave est, sic sine morte mori.-WARTON. [Light sleep, though death's strong image, prythee give Thy fellowship while in my couch I lie;

O gentle, wished-for rest, how sweet to live

Thus without life, and without death to die !]*

TO DR. ROBERT FREIND, WHO WROTE LONG EPITAPHS Freind, for your epitaphs I'm grieved,

Where still so much is said:

One half will never be believed,

The other never read.-PoPE.

THE FOOL AND THE POET.

Sir, I admit your general rule,

That every poet is a fool;

But you yourself may serve to show it
That every fool is not a poet.-POPE.

DUM VIVIMUS VIVAMUS.

Live while you live, the epicure would say,
And seize the pleasures of the present day.
Live while you live, the sacred preacher cries,
And give to God each moment as it flies.

Lord, in my view let both united be;

I live in pleasure while I live to thee.-DODDRIDGE.

A celebrated "beauty, scholar, and wit," who spoke in praise of liberty.
Liber ut esse velim, suasisti, pulchra Maria:

Ut maneam liber, pulchra Maria, vale!-DR. JOHNSON.
[Freedom you teach, fair Mary. To be free,
Farewell, lest I should be enslaved by thee !]

ON ONE IGNORANT AND ARROGANT.

Thou mayst of double ignorance boast,

Who knowst not that thou nothing knowst.-OWEN, Trans. by Cowper.

Come, gentle sleep! attend thy votary's prayer,
And, though death's image, to my couch repair;
How sweet, though lifeless, yet with life to lie,

And, without dying, oh, how sweet to die!- Wolcot's Trans,

TO OUR BED.

In bed we laugh, in bed we cry;

And born in bed, in bed we die:

The near approach the bed may show

Of human bliss to human woe.-BENSERADE.

LATE REPENTANCE.

Pravus, that aged debauchee,

Proclaimed a vow his sins to quit;

But is he yet from any free,

Except what now he can't commit?

ON A PALE LADY WITH A RED-NOSED HUSBAND.

Whence comes it that in Clara's face

The lily only has its place?

Is it because the absent rose

Has gone to paint her husband's nose?

ON SOME SNOW THAT MELTED ON A LADY'S BREAST.

Those envious flakes came down in haste,

To prove her breast less fair,

But, grieved to find themselves surpassed,*
Dissolved into a tear.

SELVAGGI'S DISTICH ADDRESSED TO JOHN MILTON,

While at Rome.

Græcia Moonidem, jactet sibi Roma Maronem,
Anglia Miltonum jactat utrique parem.

DRYDEN'S AMPLIFICATION.

Three poets in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The next, in majesty; in both, the last.
The force of nature could no further go:

To make a third, she joined the former two.

The following madrigal was addressed to a Lancastrian lady, and accompanied with a white rose, during the opposition of the "White Rose" and "Red Rose" adherents of the houses of York and Lancaster:-

If this fair rose offend thy sight,

It in thy bosom wear;

'Twill blush to find itself less white,

And turn Lancastrian there.

ON BUTLER'S MONUMENT.

While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,
No generous patron would a dinner give.

See him, when starved to death and turned to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust.

The poet's fate is here in emblem shown:

He asked for bread, and he received a stone.-S. WESLEY.

OVERDRAWN COMPLIMENT.

So much, dear Pope, thy English Homer charms,

As pity melts us, or as passion warms,

That after-ages will with wonder seek
Who 'twas translated Homer into Greek.

SUGGESTED BY A GERMAN TOURIST.
Who accompanied Prince Albert into Scotland.
Charmed with the drink which Highlanders compose,
A German traveller exclaimed, with glee,
"Potztausend! sare, if this be Athol Brose,*

How good the Athol Boetry must be!"-Tox HOOD.

ETERNITY.

Reason does but one quaint solution lend
To nature's deepest yet divinest riddle;
Time is a beginning and an end,
Eternity is nothing but a middle.

OCCASIONED BY THE LOSS OF A CLERGYMAN'S PORTMANTEAU,
Containing his Sermons.

I've lost my portmanteau.

"I pity your grief."

It contained all my sermons.
"I pity the thief!"

TO A LIVING AUTHOR.

Your comedy I've read, my friend,

And like the half you pilfered, best;
But sure the piece you yet may mend:

Take courage, man! and steal the rest.

Athol brose is a favorite Highland drink, composed of honey, whiskey, and water, although the proportion of the latter is usually so homœopathically minute as to be difficult of detection except by chemical or microscopical analysis. Possibly the Scotch aversion to injuring the flavor of their whiskey by dilution arises from a fact noted by N. P. Willis, that the water bas tasted so strongly of sinners ever since the Flood.