gymnastic amusements of their children.

"1. When young people are standing, and bend their head backwards to the ground, with a view to tumble over.On this occafion they endeavour to preferve the equilibrium, by a fudden turn, and often experience dangerous falls. Thus the muscles of the abdomen are preternaturally stretched; the inteftines are violently preffed downwards; and ruptures frequently produced. When children attempt to climb, they might undertake this fpecies of muscular exercise with more safety and fuccefs without fhoes, efpecially if thefe do not exactly fit the feet; as they foon learn to employ the latter with great firmness and flexibility. Hence boys in the country are incomparably more expert in this purfuit than the youth of towns, who more eafily injure themselves by falling.

"2. Wantonly jumping for a confiderable height, whether up or down, is attended with a violent concuffion and extenfion of the mufcles. The performers fhould therefore be instructed to make fuch efforts with inflected knees; to let themselves down first on the points of the toes, and then gradually defcend on the foles of the feet.

"3. Nor fhould too forcible exertions of muscular power be fuffered at this tender age; for the lifting of great weights, particularly the raising of a ponderous fubftance from the ground, and bending back the upper part of the body, are extremely dangerous attempts; because, while in fuch attitudes, the muscles of the lower belly are contracted, and the bowels compreffed between the midriff; refpiration is obviously impeded; and thus ruptures are easily occafioned. We often obferve young and feeble children lifting and carrying others of a much larger fize, which, for the reafons above stated, ought never to be permitted.

"4. All partial exercife of the body, by which only one arm or leg is exerted, has a tendency to give the body a crooked form. Hence, playing at nine-pins, drawing hand-carts, carrying burdens on one arm, or fhoulder, all are pernicious. The principal injury,

however, arifes from continuing such employment for several hours together; becaufe, if it be practifed with moderation, and but occafionally reforted to, its tendency is beneficial rather than hurtful. Young people, therefore, ought to be taught to make use of both arms, for we generally neglect the improvement of the left hand; and it would be very defirable to contrive games in which both arms may be alternately exercised.

"5. Sedentary plays, if long perfevered in, are productive of bad confequences, because they are apt to bend the fpine, and diftort the body. The fpinal column being too weak to support the incumbent part of the frame, the vertebræ yield to one fide, in confequence of long-continued fedentary employments; for which reafon all games of this nature ought to be ftrictly prohibited.

"6. Long ftanding is likewife detrimental to the ftraight growth of children: and as their legs are too feeble, by preponderating to one fide the fame injurious effect is produced.

"The games of children ought to be adapted in conformity to these obfervations. Bodily exercife is to them indifpenfably neceffary, provided it be regulated according to the rules and cautions before detailed: in fuch case, it will neither endanger their health nor their lives; and we need be under no apprehenfion from their efforts to climb or leap. Thofe, indeed, who tremble at every declivity, and will fcarcely venture to move from the spot, are in greater danger of receiving injury, than the spirited and courageous boy, who generally is the most fuccefsful. Mothers are on the whole too anxious on thefe occafions, because their tender fex is not accustomed to bodily exercife: hence, by checking their little ones in every effort of leaping, they contribute to render them, timid, without confidering that by fuch injudicious means they are ill prepared for encountering future dangers. For inftance, în accidents from fire, they will be unable to fave either their own lives or those of others; and if they in the leaft venture upon a fudden emergency, they hazard more than they are qualified to overcome." P. 417,

IX. Lyrical Ballads, with other Poems. By W. WORDSWORTH. Vol. II. *. 12mo. pp. 227. 55. Longman and Rees.

HA

CONTENTS.

ARTLEAP Well-There was a Boy, &c.-The Brothers, a paftoral Poem--Ellen Irwin, or the Braes of Kirtle-Strange Fits of Paffion I have known, &c.-Song-A Slumber did my Spirit feal, &c.The Waterfall and the EglantineThe Oak and the Broom, a Pastoral -Lucy Gray-The idle Shepherd Boys, or Dungeon Gill Force, a Paftoral T is faid that fome have died for Love, &c.--Poor Sufan-Infcription for the Spot where the Hermitage ftood on St. Herbert's Ifland, Derwent-water-Infcription for the Houfe (an Out-house) on the Island at Grafmere-To a Sexton-Andrew Jones-The two Thieves, or the last Stage of Avarice-A Whirl-blaft from behind the Hill, &c.-Song for the wandering Jew--Ruth--Lines written with a Slate-pencil upon a Stone, &c.--Lines written on Tablet in a School-The two April Mornings The Fountain, a Converfation--Nutting--Three Years the grew in Sun and Shower, &c.

a

The pet Lamb, a Paftoral-Written in Germany on one of the coldest Days of the Century-The childless Father-The old Cumberland Beggar, a Defcription-Rural Architecture-A Poet's Epitaph-A Character--A Fragment--Poems on the Naming of Place-Michael, a Pastoral-Notes to the Poem of The Brothers--Notes to the Poem of • Michael.'

EXTRACTS.

POOR SUSAN.

"AT the corner of Wood Street,

when daylight apears, There's a thruth that fings loud, it has fung for three years:

A penny

way

Juft at the time; and there he found The Cripple in the mid-day heat Standing alone, and at his feet He faw the penny on the ground. "He stopp'd, and took the penny up: And when the Cripple nearer drew, Quoth Andrew, Under half-a-crown, • What a man finds is all his own, And fo, my friend, good day to you.'

"And hence I faid, that Andrew's boys

Will all be train'd to waste and pillage;

And wish'd the prefs-gang, or the drum

With its tantara found would come; And fweep him from the village!" P. 89.

"Here's a fly, a difconfolate creature perhaps,

A child of the field or the grove,

And forrow for him! this dull treacherous heat

Has feduc'd the poor fool from his winter retreat,

And he creeps to the edge of my stove. "Alas! how he fumbles about the domains

Which this comfortless oven environ; He cannot find out in what track he muft crawl,

Now back to the tiles, and now back to the wall,

And now on the brink of the iron. "Stock-ftill there he ftands like a traveller bemaz'd,

The beft of his fkill he has tried; His feelers methinks I can fee him put forth

To the east and the weft, and the But he finds neither guide-poft nor fouth and the north, guide.

"See! his fpindles fink under him, foot, leg, and thigh;

His eyefight and hearing are loft; Between life and death his blood freezes and thaws,

And his two pretty pinions of blue dufky gauze

Are glu'd to his fides by the frost. "No brother, no friend has he near him, while I'

Can draw warmth from the cheek of my love,

As bleft and as glad in this defolate gloom,

As if green fummer grafs were the floor of my room,

And woodbines were hanging above. "Yet, God is my witnefs, thou small helplefs thing,

Thy life I would gladly fuftain
Till fummer comes up from the South,
and with crowds

Of thy brethren a march thou should'st
found through the clouds,
And back to the forefts again."
P. 144.

THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR. A Defcription.

[The clafs of beggars to which the old man here defcribed belongs, will probably foon be extinct. It confifted of poor, and, mostly, old and H infirm

infirm perfons, who confined themfelves to a ftated round in their neighbourhood, and had certain fixed days, on which, at different houses, they regularly received charity; fometimes in money, but moftly in provifions.]

"I SAW an aged Beggar in my walk,

And he was feated by the highway fide On a low ftructure of rude mafonry Built at the foot of a huge hill, that. they

Who lead their horfes down the steep. rough road

May thence remount at eafe. The aged man

Had plac'd his ftaff across the broad

fmooth ftone

That overlays the pile, and from a bag All white with flour, the dole of village dames,

He drew his fcraps and fragments, one by one,

And feann'd them with a fix'd and

Sidelong and half reverted. She who

tends

The toll-gate, when in fummer at her door

She turns her wheel, if on the road fhe fees

The aged Beggar coming, quits her work,

And lifts the latch for him, that he may pafs.

The poft-boy, when his rattling wheels o'ertake

The aged Beggar in the woody lane, Shouts to him from behind, and, if perchance

The old man does not change his course, the boy

Turns with leis noify wheels to the road-fide,

Upon his lips, or anger at his heart. And paffes gently by, without a curfe He travels on, a folitary man;

His age has no companion. On the ground

His eyes are turn'd, and, as he moves along,

They move along the ground; and

exift

Divorc'd from good, a spirit and pulse of good,

A life and foul to every mode of being Infeparably link'd. While thus he creeps

From door to door, the villagers in him

Behold a record which together binds
Paft deeds and offices of charity
Elfe unremember'd, and fo keeps alive
The kindly mood in hearts which lapfe
of years,

And that half wisdom half experience gives,

Make flow to feel, and by fure steps refign

To selfishness and cold oblivious cares. Among the farms and folitary huts, Hamlets, and thinly-fcatter'd villages, Where'er the aged Beggar takes his rounds,

The mild neceffity of ufe compels To acts of love; and habit does the work

Of reafon, yet prepares that after-joy Which reafon cherishes. And thus the foul,

By that fweet taste of pleasure unpurfu'd

Doth find itself infenfibly difpos'd
To virtue and true goodness. Some

there are,

By their good works exalted, lofty minds

And meditative, authors of delight

The profperous and unthinking, they

Shelter'd, and flourish in a little grove who live Of their own kindred, all behold in him

A filent monitor, which on their minds Muft needs imprefs a tranfitory thought Of felf-congratulation, to the heart His charters and exemptions; and perOf each recalling his peculiar boons, chance,

Though he to no one give the forti

tude

And circumfpection needful to preferve

His prefent bleffings, and to hufband up The refpite of the feafon, he, at least, And 't is no vulgar service, makes them felt." P. 151.

RURAL ARCHITECTURE.

"THERE's George Fisher, Charles Fleming, and Reginald Shore, Three rofy-cheek'd schoolboys, the higheft not more

Than the height of a counfellor's bag;

To the top of Great How did it please them to climb, And there they built up without mortar or lime

A man on the peak of the crag.

"They