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call him fool, for we are told not to give that name to a brother. Yet we are likewise told, that "the fool saith in his heart, there is no God." He so saith in his heart, because his heart is desperately wicked, and hard as a stone. But affliction comes like a great frost, and splits the stone into pieces, and then the wretch knows that there is a God, and a judgment.

Mr Loudon is, like ourselves, an editor. He has then a catapulta and a battering-ram to bring against us; and, if our wall be weak, he may hope to breach it, to rush in and storm our citadel, and put our garrison to the sword. But we promise, if he be rash enough to face such an encounter, to meet him, not in the breach, but outside the ramparts, and within his own lines, at the head of a victorious sally, and in our hand the Crutch. In hoc signo vincimusand our very name has long been a tower of strength, and a sword of fire-Christopher North.

Gardeners of Great Britain and of Ireland!-for we love the Emerald of the Sea-ye will range yourselves, we know, under our banner. How often have our hearts been gladdened by the sight of that Annual Show, moving to music through the streets and squares of high Dunedin, a waving wood of beautiful green branches, fruit-laden, and bright, too, with flowers, while underneath, with measured tread, whose firm sound brings from the dust the pleasant sound of peace, marches a long line of thoughtful, but cheerful faces, of figures, such as, if need were, would drive, with levelled bayonets, all invaders into the sea. Sons of Adam, and followers of his trade! we greet you well one and all of you at this hour pursuing your work, which is your pastime, on the bosom of the

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various spring. We are with you on Mayday. Saunders, give us a spade.

"When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?" Why, Adam, to be sure, and Eve was the lady-and so is every Adam still

and so is every Eve-who delving, remembers that he too is but a worm; who spinning, thinks sometimes of her own frail thread of life!

O, gardeners of Mid-Lothian! we saw you through a window-we say not in what street-with our own old eyes, walking in that multitudinous procession on the day celebrative of

-Reform. What Pan, and Sylvanus, and Vertumnus, and Pomona, and Flora, thought and felt, we know not; perhaps even as Christopher North. May no frost kill the blossoms of your hopes! May the tree then planted be the best of bearers, and a very golden pippin in the flavour of its fruit!

As for you, ye Plumbers, "with leaden eyes that love the ground!" we noticed your banner, emblazoned with "Christopher under the Pump." It was a poor caricature-and the inscription stolen from Maga. It had been well if all the members of your managing committee had confined themselves to such petty theft. But on the very day before the Procession, that very standard-bearer, availing himself of his office of Inspector of the Gutters, in which we had employed and paid him for a good many years, cut off some hundred pound weight of lead, and rolling it up like a few yards of carpetting, over his unseen shoulder with it, down stairs, out of the area-door, and, having deposited it in a place of safety, away to speak on Reformthe orator being at the same time a Thief and a Robber.

FOUR LYRICS. BY DELTA.

No. I.

TO THE SKYLARK.

AWAKE ere the morning dawn-skylark, arise!
The last of the stars hath waned dim in the skies;
The peak of the mountain is purpled in light,
And the grass with the night-dew is diamonded white;
The young flowers, at morning's call, open their eyes,—
Then up ere the break of day, skylark, arise!

Earth starts like a sluggard half-roused from a dream;
Pale and ghost-like the mist floats away from the stream,
And the cataract hoarsely, that all the night long
Pour'd forth to the desolate darkness its song,
Now softens to music, as brighten the skies ;-
Then up ere the dawn of day, skylark, arise!

Arise from the clover, and up to the cloud,
Ere the sun leaves his chamber in majesty proud,
And, ere his light lowers to earth's meaner things,
Catch the stainless effulgence of heaven on thy wings,
While thy gaze, as thou soarest and singest, shall feast
On the innermost shrine of the uttermost east.

Up, up with a loud voice of singing! the bee
Will be out to the bloom, and the bird to the tree,
The trout to the pool, and the par to the rill,
The flock to the plain, and the deer to the hill-

Soon the marsh will resound to the plover's lone cries ;-
Then up ere the dawn of day, skylark, arise!

Alone

Up, up with thy praise-breathing anthem !
The drowsyhead, man, on his bed slumbers prone;
The stars may go down, and the sun from the deep
Burst forth, still his hands they are folded in sleep.
Let the least in creation the greatest despise-
Then up to Heaven's threshold, blithe skylark, arise!

No. II.

TWILIGHT THOUGHTS.

HOARSE chatter'd the crow on the boughs overhead,
And the owl, from a time-ruin'd tower,

Boded forth to my spirit its omens of dread,

And added fresh gloom to the hour:

Earth frown'd like a desert; the clouds roll'd above

In murkier shadows, a desolate throng;

While the stream, as it flow'd through October's wan grove,
Had turn'd into wailing its song.

Then sunk the red sun o'er the verge of the hill,
The dull twilight breeze roam'd abroad,

And sigh'd-while all sounds of existence were still-
Through the aspens that border'd the road.

'Twas a scene of seclusion-beneath an oak-tree,
All pensive I sate on a moss-cover'd stone,
And thought that, whatever the future might be,
How sweet were the days which were gone!

I mused on the friends who had pass'd to the grave-
Like spectres they rose on the mind;

Then, listening, I heard but the dull hollow rave
Of the rank grass, bestirr'd by the wind.

I thought on the glory, the sunshine of yore,

When Hope rear'd her fairy-built piles to the view;
Then turn'd to the darken'd plain scowling before,
And the wither'd plants laden with dew.

Thrice happy, I deem'd, were the perish'd and dead,
Since pleasures but wane into woes;

And the friends, with whom youth's sunny morning was led,
Have left us alone ere its close.

Who longest survive but the longer deplore,

Since Heaven calls its favourites the soonest away;

The holly-tree smiles through the snows lying hoar,
But the passion-flower fades in a day!

No. III.

HADDON HALL, YORKSHIRE.

GREEN weeds o'ertop thy ruined wall,
Grey, venerable Haddon Hall,

The swallow twitters through thee;

Who would have thought, when, in their pride,
Thy battlements the storm defied,

That time should thus subdue thee?

While with a famed and far renown,
England's third Edward wore the crown,
Upsprang'st thou in thy glory;
And surely thine-if thou couldst tell
Like the old Delphian oracle,-
Would be a wondrous story!

How many a Vernon thou hast seen,
Kings of the Peak, thy walls within;
How many a maiden tender;
How many a warrior stern and steel'd,
In burgonet, and lance, and shield,
Array'd with martial splendour.

Then, as the soft autumnal breeze
Just curl'd the lake, just stirr'd the trees,
In the blue cloudless weather,
How many a gallant hunting train,
With hawk in hood, and horse in rein,
Forsook thy courts together!

The grandeur of the olden time
Mantled thy towers with pride sublime,
Enlivening all who near'd them;
From Hippocras and Sherris sack
Palmer or Pilgrim turn'd not back,

Before thy cellars cheer'd them.

Since thine unbroken early day,
How many a race hath pass'd away,

In charnel vault to moulder,

Yet Nature round thee breathes an air
Serenely bright, and softly fair,
To charm the rapt beholder.

The past is but a gorgeous dream,
And Time glides by us like a stream,
While musing on thy story;
And sorrow prompts a deep-Alas!
That, like a pageant, thus should pass
To wreck all human glory.

No. IV.

ELEGIAC STANZAS.

FAREWELL! if there can be farewell
To what is graved on Memory's page;
Thine image there undimm'd shall dwell,
And highest, holiest thoughts engage:
When, in the calm of solitude,

I think how pure mere man might be,
How meekly great, how truly good,
My spirit turns to thee!

Thine was the tongue that spake no ill;
Thine was the judgment, ever kind,
That for the erring, lingered still
Benevolent excuse to find;

Pure in thyself, 'twas thine to think

That others,-all mankind were such,

Alive to feel, and quick to shrink

From Sin's polluting touch.

Yes! 'twas no idle, vain pretence,
No frothwork of a feeble mind,
For thine was learning's excellence
With strong and manly sense combined;

The glories of the ancient day

Illumed thy steps with classic light, The patriot's deed and poet's lay Bequeath'd thee sweet delight.

And thine was Duty's loftiest sense,

And thine that calm, high, Christian faith, Which warm'd thee to benevolence, And soothed the thorny bed of death; So God hath call'd thee back again, Back to thy birthright in the sky, Who ne'er gave cause of grief to men, Save when 'twas thine to die!

WOMAN. BY SIMONIDES (NOT OF COs).

TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM HAY.

1.

THE prototype of every female mind
The Gods first made, of every form and kind.
Behold the slut-she in the dirt is found
All filth-polluted, rolling on the ground,
Unwashed, unkempt, untidy her attire,
In mud she wallows, fattens in the mire,
Her filthy house, and filthier self avow
Her soul as taken from the bristly sow.

II.

The scoundrel fox another soul supplies,
To good and evil-up to all-all-wise;
A prying spirit, ever on the watch

At truth or lies, at right or wrong to catch;
The busy-bodies these, that roam and gad,
Some pretty good, but more, alas! are bad.

III.

That barking woman, with her slanderous itch,
Proclaims the spirit of her parent bitch.
With eager eyes and ears, and poking snout,
She snuffs for scandal, and she paws it out;
Peering and peeping everywhere she goes,
Barking and biting both at friends and foes:
And rather than be still, the spiteful elf
Will snap and snarl at her precious self.
What if her everlasting tongue should rouse
The angry spirit of her patient spouse
To seize a stone to quell each horrid note,
And pound her grinders down her yelping throat:
Ah! little would it boot, poor man-for she
Will bark, though angry or though kind he be,
Though friends or foes, or strangers should be near,
Her clamorous tongue, all, all are doomed to hear.

IV.

The lazy lump, the weary husband's load,
The Gods created of the sluggish sod-
Her earth-born spirit knows nor ill nor good,
Her knowledge is to cram herself with food.
When angry winter's biting frosts appear,
Close by the blazing hearth she posts her chair,
And the poor creature sits and shivers there.

v.

Mark you a fifth the never constant sea,
Oh fickle womankind, gave birth to thee;
So smiling, lovely, so serene to-day,
That he who knows thee not might justly say,
Most elegant, domestic, perfect creature,
"Thou cunning pattern of excelling nature."
But mark her well,-'tis hideous to behold
This perfect creature,-now a perfect scold;
Whom none dare look upon, and none come near,
Who fills both friends and foes, and all with fear,

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