said respectable veterans. This sup- ones recast for half-price. I supply position was an egregious error. plots for incipient dramatists; and Mankind have treated me with in- when their pieces are damned, I magratitude. « None of my inventions nufacture indignant appeals to a canhave been recompensed, many have did public. I deal in birth-day odes, been ridiculed, and not a few' of my epithalainia, funeral elegies, and last thoughts have been appropriated by speeches and dying words of convicted others without acknowledginent. A felons, I have nuaiden-speeches for certain method of teaching music, for modest members, forms of returning instance, that became very popular, thanks for health drauk, pecuniary owes its origin to me; and a German applications to sexagenary relatives, professor who shall be nameless, might, soothing epistles to rigid aunts, amaif he were candid, own himself in- tory effusions for barren-witted lovers, debted to my hints for his system of and an astounding variety of highlymnemonics. But let all that pass. finished compliments. : In sarcasm I was born a philanthropist, and shall and abuse I am quite inimitable, whedie tone. The benevolent bump juts ther you consider the wonderful feramiably from my pericranium. "I can tility of my invention, or the ingenious never be weary of benefiting mankind, dexterity of my evasive power. I and I now step forward with a new have upwards of 1500 modes of girproposal for their advantage. ing the lie, without using the offensive Without further preface, then, I term, and 2000 circumlocutions for a propose to open, in a few days, a large rascal. I know precisely every degree intellectual warehouse, or grand repo- of approximation to a libel, can sport sitory of materials for thinking, writ-on the almost invisible line that sepaing, public-speaking, and principally rates it from legitimate satire, with the for conversation. The philosopher í adroitness of a rope-dancer, and smell. shall provide with wise saws, the wit out an ex-officio at any given distance. with bon-mots for all occasions, the I have keen hits, sharp retorts, sly orator with tropes and figures, and inuendoes, and home-thrusts without the general talker with hits of all number. I am a finished master of kinds. There shall be à plenti- the whole art of talking at people, and ful assortment of naivetes for young can teach it completely in six lessons. widows, and double entendres for Moreover, I have several chests of elderly gentlemen. I manufacture satirical anecdotes of all persons of intellectual snaps for young lawyers, note and figure in these islands, and talk-stiffeners for young doctors, deli- of most of the nobility and crowned cate insinuations for longing ladies, heads of Europe, to say nothing of knockdowns for big-wigs, marvellous an immense store-room of private tales for old women of both sexes, scandal. high-coloured confab for topers, gen My warehouse is divided into reguteel slang for the army and navy, and lar compartments. There are, first, scraps of everything for miscellaneous for general use, the compartments of writers.' For conversational critics 1 judgment, imagination, wit und hu= *** have a variety of compendions formulæ, mour. In the first I keep my pro to which I give the expressive deno- found truisms, my solemn, commonmination of Old places, and my dull paradoxes. In jokers can be supplied with new.jokes the next I keep my metaphors and moderate rate, or have the old similies, my high-heeled sentimenta, myšiaking sensibilities, my physical house there is a large machine, on 3 horrors, my political and philosophi- nearly the same plan with that men- '-} cal theories, iny ultra-miraculous fic- tioned by Gulliver, in his voyage to tions, and my German monsters. At- Laputa. Into this I put, not the tached to this compartment is a small letters of the alphabet, but all the closet, containing rhymes, epithets, words of the English language, and a 1 exordia, perorations, descriptions of multiplicity of common-place sentences 11 green fields, sonnets to the moon, &c. on every subject. The machine being try În the third compartment are contained set a working, throws all these into, all the different species of witticism all possible positions. From this pros and dry humour ; in short every thing cess I derive many original thoughts needful for the complete equipment of and novel associations of idea. ' I use 19 a droll-fish. I have, besides, separate this machine with great effect in 1 rooms for all the arts and sciences, and the composition of sermons; public!,b every branch of the belles lettres. So speeches, moral essays, periodical cri- :, that when a person is going into com- tiques, and light articles for magazines." I pany, and is desirous to seem master Thus, Sir, I have given you a brief of any particular topic, I can imme- outline of my plan, all the advantages is diately furnish him with the appropriate of which it would be impossible to 3. materials without delay or difficulty. comprehend within the compass of a 6 I can supply arguments on all sides, letter. Should you think piper, "; in every grand question of religion however, to insert this letter, I shall and politics. In the right wing of be most happy to conduct you over i my repository, on the ground floor, my warehouse, and give you a few is a room full of theology. Whiggism hints, gratis, for the management of 3 and toryism are lodged in opposite your paper. apartments on the first floor, aristo- P.S. I teach tlie true Burleian, 7 cracy is on the second floor, ultra- shake of the empty noodle, and the in royalism in the garret, and radical re- wise stare of the unmeaning eye. form in the cellar. Behind the ware Presididunt ut en bin 41 از POETRY u hoi SONG. And often in some ruin'd tower, She spends the creary midnight hour, 11 Her accents war sweet as the flowers on the lee, Her masie was saften'd to steal through the soul, Of storms athwart the ruffling decp. With rapid hity borne I love to trace her calto tetrehus; !!! Her flowery reads and winding glades1993: Scarce half o'its soun to an untreking heart, Beneath her hpary, ivy shades, it She pausd on the won, lest, all !reathless wi' fear, I love at eve to muse, Uncordial emotions might turn a deaf ear; And when, around the moss-clad boughs, The owlets, as they sail along, A solemn awe diffuse, In thy tone haunts, o'! solitude, !!!...! Beside a goutly murm'ring flood, 1.. Where pliant hazel-twigs combine, An arching canopy to twiste, Let me inglorious lie. cilia When light first streaks the op'ning east, On sparkling ocean's glowing breast, I. and Let me to solitudes retire, all tekincholyy darling child, And wake submiss my humble lyre, 19" ** Grim solitude forlorn. Or to the breezes sigla. Farewell promis'd pleasures; vain visions adieu 'Tis sweet to stray at early dawn, Steals softly olet the lon. Slow sinking to the sea. SILVICOLA. THE LAUNDRESSES Two by two they watch along, EVIL DESTINY. bright desart I ran. sing fair; mor?, breast, as fair, As when first o'er their soft charms enchanted I hung, But my soul-ah! each dark weed grows rankling there, And the harp of this heart lies for ever unstrung. day; . MOSLENI NOTICES TO CORRESPONDEN IS, When Wiseacres, like Quis, grow impertinent and overbearing, they should be treated as Ajax treated uld be Ulysses, in the Elysian fields, with contempt. The communication, viz, Bailie Nicol Jarvie's Laun, in our next. soon be attended to, as also will Alexander, the anagramatist. Juvenis is under inspection, Marion's letter cannot find a place. We have a dozen on the same subject. We, at the same time, must pay her the compliment of saying that she writes prettily John Bashful must be out of coumtenance at least for another week. As Glasgow now stands, if the author would make it a review instead of a poem, it would af mush to its interest. Will he let us know his opinion ? word We assure T. B. we never mean to offend we have to endure as well as inflict. Thought nof Job, we have many such friends as he had. Printed, published and sold, every Wednesday, by GEORGE PURVIS & Co. Successors to W. They Lyceum ('ourt, Nelson Street, where communications, post paid, may be addressed to the Edicor.. Sold also by Mr. Grifkies, Public Library, Hutcheson Street; at the Sleeps of the Principal Boakaela Glasgow. Also of the following Booksellers : John Hislop, Greenock; John Dick, Ayt: Thomas Die Paisley , Kobert Mathie, Kilmarnock; Malcolm Currie, Port-Glasgow; D. Conde, Rothesay e famo Thomson, Hamilton; and M. Dicki, Irvine ; for ready money only. 1 A ONE DAY'S RAMBLE music of the grove had fled, and the In the walks of my boyhood, with reflec- hollow blast alone relieved the sepul tions on the close of the year. chral silence which reigned around, Having occasion a few weeks ago Such a scene could not fail to conjure to visit the scenes of my earliest wan- up a corresponding train of gloomy derings, which, although easily acces- feelings and melancholic associations. sible, and devoid of any thing like I already felt their effervescence, and strong intrinsic interest, are neverthe- resolved to give vent to the moody less linked to my heart by a thousand offspring of my troubled brain. For soft and endearing associations: I re- this purpose, I entered the wood withsolved to take a stroll to a short dis-in whose umbrageous bosom I so often tance over some of my old haunts, and have nestled with delight. I followed commune for an hour with solitude. the footpath which I was wont to The day was cold and gusty, the clouds trace, when sallying forth in boyhood's had lowered portentously during the pride, to cull the first offsprings of the greater part of the forenoon, and al- primrose bed. I reached that spot 80 though there was no indication of al hallowed in my remembrance, but alas! present put-pouring of their treasures, all its pride and its glory had flown'; the brow of heaven was still gloomy, no vestige of its flowery sweets remainand its fair face diversified by an irre-ed, and even its fibrous leaves had gular siebession of Albating drapery, shrunk like the sensitive plant, beneath which sailed sullenly along the sky, the cold touch of winter's icy hand.' and alternately veiled and exposed the I retired to a small knoll where I deep blue bosom of the cerulian con- had last reclined, when the luxuriant cave. There was a withering coldness foliage of the trees spread all around a in the atmosphere, which well accord- sombre covering. Now, alas! a frowned with the sallow nakedness of the ing sky was all the canopy; while the now anfrequented lawn. The wind blasted branches only reminded one of moaned with a solemn sidence through the dry-bone remains of decayed mor. the deserted grove, and at every blast tality. The illusions of hope, and the shook from the baring branches some play-things of fancy, fled me like a shrivelled memento of their late exu- morning dream; while I sat down desberance. Al was sad and lonely. The ponding and dreary, amid the desola tion of the scene, to brood over nature's is it at all wonderful, when we trace it destiny. The winter of the year is to the workings of mere physical inindeed like the winter of human life. stinct. When even in rude nature the The buds of spring and the blossoms little hills,' are, as it were, rejoicing of summer have perished. The fresh- on every side, it is wisely ordered, ness of the one, and the fragrance of that our animal sympathies should join the other, they too have passed away: in the same jubilee, and produce a and the prophetic sigh of the hollow general ferment in the more subtle elewind speaks only of the tomb. Nature ment which works within. Who too seems locked in the same chilling would not be cxhilerated and delighted embrace, without promise of liberation. upon seeing sweetest spring laughing. The very stamina of vegetation seem ly advance, with snow-drops in her destroyed, and the autumn blast shakes hand, and snow-balls at her feet?--from the bending tree its deciduous who would not be wanton and buoy. glories, as if to say, They fall to flower ant to see rosy summer trip it up, led no more. With man also, the fairy on by love's own mouth, with breath images which spring had cherished, all incense, and with cheek all bloom? and summer had smiled upon, drop off Who would not be inspired and happy like leaves in autumn, leaving the to see autumn's ruddy son's arrayed heart scared and blighted,' to win- under his yellow banner , to reap the ter's unavailing woe.' The music golden fields of plenty?-__and who, of youth departs like the singing birds alas! would not be melancholy and of spring, and the vernal fancies which sad, to see • dread winter close the imagination had sunned and sweeten- latest scene,' with all his sable train of ed, fall like flowers before the blast. | vapours, and clouds, and storms,' and Every green thing vanishes, and that nature hastening to decay? smile of gaiety which formerly shed its Such is a feeble transcript of the relight around the young heart, is lost volutions which my own feelings unin the wintry and moonless night of dergo as the rolling year moves onage. The hoar-frost of winter which ward ; and such, I doubt not, are inore shows on the head, settles on the beart, or less the revolving sensations of every quenches the flame of youthful feeling, contemplative mind, according to the and gradually superinduces that indes- difference of temperament and circumcribable frigidity, which the first of stances. The heart could not be hu. passion's poets, in the following lines, man that has not felt a vernal joy and 30 feelingly deplores: a summer's pride, as well as an au*O! could I feel what I have felt, or be what 1 tumn's glee, and a winter's woe. Their Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a mutative influences are entwined with Äostreams in deserts found, seem sweet, all brakish our very existence, and our souls bend though they be; So 'midst the wither'd waste of life, these tears in sympathetic obedience to their reignwould fow to me.' ing sway. Even now how powerfully It has often occurred to me, how- and how painfully is this demonstrated. ever fantastical the idea may be, that Nature presents to the view one wide the changes of the seasons have an in- scene of utter desolation; and to the fluence upon the musing and sensitive disconsolate mind, every hanging cloud mind, somewhat analogous to that seems surcharged with the dark and which the changes of the moon are dreary forebodings of cheerless dessupposed to have upon the wayward pair. “ Desolation and woe' are and fitful fantasies of thé lunatic. Nor lechoed to the heart in every passing |