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the metropolis, should have derived its name from the stiff Collars of a Tailor? but such was the fact; one of these ninth parts of humanity having acquired sufficient money by making Peccadillos, (i.e.) Stiff Collars, to build the first house there.

Vintry Ward was so called, from the wine-merchants of Bordeaux being obliged to land their wines on the spot, and to sell them in forty days.

The Devil's Tavern, once a noted public-house in Fleetstreet, had its name from a droll circumstance, which some wicked wag has perpetuated to posterity in "immortal

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Know friends, that of old,

A plump fellow did hold

The tavern next bar o'the Temple;
He was blest, as fame goes,

With a jolly red nose,

And his name was Jeremy Kemple.

'Twas plaguy cold weather,

He was muzzled together,

With a doxy, called Elizabeth Kellar;

And these two, as it is said,

'Cause they wanted a bed,

Made use of a butt in the cellar.

Meanwhile it fell out,

In the street was a rout,

The coaches could scarce get along;

And a parcel of sheep,

Driving by, chanc'd to creep,

Close up to the wall from the throng,

Full wide were the grates,

Which made the Sun gates,

To let his light into the cellar :

When down fell a ram,

As black as old Cham,

While Kemple was toying with Kellar.

You may judge the surprise,

Made play-fellows rise,

Ill luck, this disgrace had designed 'em ;

Up half naked they ran,

Both woman and man,

And swore they'd the devil behind 'em.

Now the wags, do you see,

As wags there will be,

Being pleas'd with this pleasant adventure,

Gave the tavern the name,

To poor Jerry's shame,

By which you at present must enter.*

(To be Resumed.)

* Alluding to the year when this tavern was in great vogue.

SONNET BY SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY.

THE Curfew tolls the knell of parting day, (1)

And night's black agents (2) spread her curtain wide (3)
O'er herb, fruit, flower (4)-my solitary pride! (5)-
Dimming my sight, and shortening my survey. (6)-
Here could I wear my careless life away, (7)

Cheerful though grave, and lively though serene, (8)
Where all conspires to beautify the scene, (9)
And give the moral springs their proper play. (10)
O feast of reason, and of soul the flow! (11)
From academic shade and learned halls, (12)
In sweet forgetfulness of pain and woe, (13)
When Chanticleer with clarion shrill recalls

The tardy day (14)-Oh then, with cloudless brow, (15) Again I'll come, (16) ye woods and wilds (17) and waterfalls. (18)

ITALY.

"Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast
The fatal gift of beauty"-

THE name of Italy is connected with many associations that are dear to the soul. Not with more enthusiasm did the Crusaders visit the Holy Land, than does the man of literature this classic clime. He cannot think of Virgil or Horace, Tasso, Ariosto, or him with the "hundred tales," or the visionary Dante, or the divine Petrarch, without conjuring up to his imagination this "land of sweet sounds," this paradise of the world. Nor is it less endeared, or become less interesting by the pilgrimages of men of modern times. Addison and Goldmith, and the living Bard whose genius has shed its departing rays over the remnants

(1) Gray (2) Shakspeare-(3) Miss Smith-(4) Mallet-(5) Goldsmith-(6) Young-(7) Warton's Virgil-(8) Hannah Moore-(9) Beattie (10) Cowper-(11) The peculiar inversion of words in this line is highly characteristic of the very original style of Sir Fretful Plagiary, notwithstanding, Pope has in similar language embodied a similar idea.-(12) Mrs. Barbauld-(13) Milton-(14) Philips, (Cyder)-(15) Burns-(16) Cherry-(17) Home-(18) Dr. Johnson.

of its freedom, rush at once upon our minds when we think of Italy. The poet there takes his full draught of inspiration; and when contemplating the ruins of all that was once great and glorious in the earth, pausing as it were over the wrecks of time, and pondering on the vanity of all things, insensibly imbibes the pervading spirit of its former greatness; and in describing the dim forms of old as they are shadowed to his imagination, his breast glows with a chivalrous ardour at their exploits, and he becomes at once a partaker of their pleasures and their immortality.

The richness and fertility of the soil, its abundance of cattle, the salubrity of the air, the endless variety of its fruits and flowers, its aromatic gums, its wine and oil, however beautiful they appear upon the face of the country, are not to be compared with the deep interest that is excited by its connexion with the mistress of the world. Rome, the queen of the nations whose ruins are now enshrined in the jewels of poesy-Rome, the kingdom of arts and sciences, whose literature was disseminated over the whole civilized world-Rome, whose proud line of Cæsars are slumbering in the dust, and whose mighty Consuls are no more-Rome, whose golden eagles glittered in the sunbeam, and extended their ambitious wings over the face of the earth-Rome still survives for the poet, the painter, the sculptor, and the enthusiast.

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand,

And while Rome stands-the world."—

The

We cannot step even on the confines of Italy without being overshadowed and overwhelmed with the mysteries of its mythology. Here Saturn reigned and gave the golden. age and two-faced Janus, who built up splendid temples, and reared the sacred altars. Here the nymphs and satyrs danced to the inspiring music of the timbrel-here Agrippa erected his noble fane to the honour of all the Gods. Tiber, with its golden sands still flows; and is the same river which Horace describes as he saw it forced backward from the Tuscan shore! We may even now stand upon the Capitoline-hill, and look down upon ruined Rome-the "skeleton," as some author has expressed himself, of that gigantic form which was once terrible to the nations. Tradition still consecrates the name of Hannibal with the Lake of Thrasymene, and there is an old circular ruin which the

peasants still call "the Carthagenian's tower." The Egerian grot brings to our memory the fabled interview of Numa with the beautiful nymph who during her mighty visitations, instructed him to rule full well the Roman people. The springs over which she presided, still bubble from among the pumice rocks, and trickle through the mosses and long grasses that flourish there.

The swift Camilla scoured the plains of Italy, and opposed the landing of Eneas, who having escaped from the dangers of the Trojan war, and the perils of the deep, by command of Venus here rested from his toils and founded a city. Here Pythagoras, after having travelled for knowledge to Egypt, and beyond the walls of Babylon, founded his school of philosophy, and taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Nor should we forget Rome's founder, the son of warlike Mars, with the she wolf,' his nurse, whose story seemed so wondrous in our youth. luxurious Ovid attached his name to the immortal city, when in the spirit of prophecy he divined the perpetuity of his fame, and shouted

"One half of round eternity is mine!"

The

Corinna, and the wanton Julia, and the chaste Virginia, and the vestal train who watched the vital fire, and Tullia, the proud parricide, and a numerous train of women, endeared by their virtues, or odious for their vices, rush over the memory when we think of Italy. Cato and Brutus, names dear to liberty, and Cicero, the parent of Roman eloquence, and what was still dearer to his honour and his virtues, the father of the Roman people. Poets, philosophers, historians, and orators, rise and pass in review before us with all their attributes, and in all their glory, and render Italy a country deservedly the most famous in the world. The Alps and the Appenines, and the now spouseless Adriatic,' and the Tyrrhene sea, names sacred to sweet song, will ever be remembered with the region they protect and adorn; and so long as the love of the fine arts maintains its influence over the mind of man, shall Italy be celebrated, and had in remembrance above the other nations of the earth. She now stands "like Niobe in tears," but beautiful in her melancholy she will continue to be an object of reverential worship-a form of idolatry by all

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those who have seen her marble statues, and to whom her paintings and her poesy are known.

THE ISLAND OF CALYPSO.

SWEETEST Island of the Ocean, for ever memorable in the works of the great poets who have immortalized thy name, what reverence does thy memory inspire. Thou art associated in our imagination with the remembrance of the beautiful Calypso, the beloved of Ulysses and Telemachus. When we think of thee, we think of the goddess with her lovely train, with her innocent amusements, and with the fascinations that hung around her as a charm. But the hour of Calypso is gone by, and the deity has for ever vanished from our sight. She is no longer immortal; nc longer is she surrounded as of yore, with the sweetest virgins of the island.

The hand of the spoiler has passed over her woodland recesses; her sparkling grottos, her forest caverns, and the image of her loveliness is effaced. Pirates and unlettered Greeks now reside where Calypso once dwelt; and the rocks that once re-echoed to the Syren song of love and happiness, new reverberates with the hoarse whistle of the sea robber. Inexorable time! in depriving us of the realities of our imagination, thou hast deprived us of the sweetest solace of our existence. No longer can our fancy again cling to the remembrance of Calypso, as though a real occurrence was presented to our eyes; the mere fact of the desolate condition of her once beautiful island, is sufficient to exclude for ever the recollection of its past glories; or if we do recall them, to recall them with a bitter sense of their present inferiority.

But time was, when the mind of man, more strongly tinted with imagination than it can ever be again, viewed at a distance the towering woods and mountain caverns of Calypso, and viewed them as the holy sanctuaries of the goddess. Then was the proud æra of imagination; poetry poured the light of inspiration on the soul; and fancy assumed the guise of reality. Then were no cold blooded systems of philosophy invented to deaden the nobler faculties of the mind; all was poetry; the nature of manhis life-his actions-his feelings were all poetry, and in unison with the religion he professed. But now the days of enthusiasm are over; fancy has given way to reason,

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