as I called for small beer, the master tipped the wink, and the servant brought me a brimmer of October.*

6. Some time after dinner, I ordered my cousin's man, who came with me, to get ready the horses; but it was resolved I should not stir that night; and when I seemed pretty much bent upon going, they ordered the stable-door to be locked, and the children hid my cloak and boots. The next question was, what I would have for supper? I said I never eat anything at night; but was at last, in my own defense, obliged to name the first thing that came into my head.

7. After three hours spent chiefly in apologies for my entertainment, insinuating to me, “ That this was the worst time of the year for provisions ; that they were at a great distance from any market; that they were afraid I should be starved; and that they knew they kept me to my loss,” the lady went and left me to her husband (for they took special care I should never be alone). As soon as her back was turned, the little misses ran backwards and forwards every moment; and constantly, as they came in or went out, made a courtesy directly at me, which in good manners I was forced to return with a bow, and, Your humble servant, pretty miss.

8. Exactly at eight, the mother came up, and discovered, by the redness of her face, that supper was not far off. It was twice as large as the dinner, and my persecution doubled in proportion. I desired at my usual hour to go to my repose, and was conducted to my chamber by the gentleman, his lady, and the whole train of children.

9. They importuned me to drink something before I went to bed; and upon my refusing, at last left a bottle of stingo, as they called it, for fear I should wake and be thirsty in the night. I was forced in the morning to rise and dress myself in the dark, because they would not suffer my kinsman's servant to disturb me at the hour I desired to be called.

10. I was now resolved to break through all measures to get away; and after sitting down to a monstrous breakfast of cold beef, mutton, neats'-tongues, venison-pasty, and stale beer, took leave of the family. But the gentleman would needs see me part of my way, and carry me a short cut through his own grounds, which he told me would save half a mile's riding

11. This last piece of civility had like to have cost me dear, being once or twice in danger of* my neck, by leaping over his ditches, and at last forced to alight in the dirt; when my horse, having slipped his bridle, ran away, and took us up more than an hour to recover him again. It is evident that none of the absurdities I met with in this visit proceeded from an ill intention, but from a wrong judgment of complaisance, and a misapplication in the rules of it.

LESSON LXXI.

The Thrush's Nest. CLARE.
1. WITHIN a thick and spreading hawthorn bush,
That overhung a molehill large and round,
I heard, from morn to morn, a merry thrush,
Sing hymns of rapture, while I drank the sound
With joy; and oft, an unintruding guest,
I watched her secret toils from day to day;
How true she warped the moss to form her nest,
And modeled it within with wood and clay.

2. And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew,
There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers,
Ink-spotted over, shells of green and blue;
And there I witnessed, in the summer hours,
A brood of Nature's minstrels chirp and fly,
Glad as the sunshine in the laughing sky.*

LESSON LXXII.
The Newcastle Apothecary. — GEORGE COLMAN.

1. A man in many a country town, we know,
Professes openly with death to wrestle;

* Montgomery says quaintly, but truly, of this sonnet : “Here we have in miniature the history and geography of a thrush's nest, so simply and naturally set forth that one might think such strains

No more difficile

Than for a blackbird 't is to whistle. But let the heartless critic, who despises them, try his own hand either at a bird's nest or a sonnet like this; and when he has succeeded in making the one, he may have some hope of being able to make the other."

Entering the field against the grimly foe,
Armed with a mortar and a pestle:
Yet some affirm, no enemies they are ;
But meet just like prize-fighters in a fair,
Who first shake hands before they box,
Then give each other plaguy knocks,
With all the love and kindness of a brother:
So (many a suffering patient saith),
Though the apothecary fights with Death,
Still they're sworn friends to one another.

2. A member of this Æsculapian line
Lived at Newcastle-upon-Tyne:
No man could better gild a pill,
Or make a bill;
Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister;
Or draw a tooth out of your head,
Or chatter scandal by your

bed.

3. His fame full six miles round the country rar ,
In short, in reputation he was solus :
All the old women called him “a fine man!”
His name was Bolus.

4. Benjamin Bolus, though in trade
(Which oftentimes will genius fetter),
Řead works of fancy, it is said,
And cultivated the belles lettres.*
And why should this be thought so odd ?
Can't men have taste who cure a phthisic? +
Of poetry though patron god,
Apollo patronizes physic.
Bolus loved verse, and took so much delight in 't,
That his prescriptions he resolved to write in 't.

5. No opportunity he e'er let pass
Of writing the directions on his labels
In dapper couplets, like Gay's fables,
Or, rather, like the lines in Hudibras.
Apothecary's verse! -- and where's the treason?
'T is simply honest dealing ; not a crime ;
When patients swallow physic without reason,
It is but fair to give a little rhyme.

To whom, one evening, Bolus sent an article
In pharmacy, that's called cathartical.
And on the label of the stuff
He wrote this verse,
Which one would think was clear enough,
And terse:

- When taken,

To be well shaken."
7. Next morning early, Bolus rose,
And to the patient's house he goes
Upon his pad,
Who a vile trick of stumbling had :
It was, indeed, a very sorry hack;
But that's of course;
For what's expected from a horse,
With an apothecary on his back ?
Bolus arrived, and gave a doubtful tap,
Between a single and a double rap.

8. Knocks of this kind
Are given by gentlemen who teach to dance ;
By fiddlers, and by opera-singers;
One loud, and then a little one behind,
As if the knocker fell by chance
Out of their fingers.

9. The servant lets him in with dismal face,
Long as a courtier's out of place -
Portending some disaster;
John's countenance as rueful looked and grim,
As if the apothecary had physicked him.
And not his master.

10. “Well, how's the patient?" Bolus said;
John shook his head.
Indeed! - hum! ha! that's

very

odd! He took the draught?' John gave a nod. Well, how? what then ? speak out, you dunce!” Why, then,” says John, “ we shook him once.” "Shook him!- how?” Bolus stammered out. "We jolted him about.”.

11. “Zounds! shake a patient, man!-a shake won't do. No, sir, and so we gave him two.". Two shakes ! od's curse! 'T would make the patient worse." "It did so, sir, and so a third we tried.”. Well, and what then?” – “Then, sir, my master died.”

LESSON LXXIII.

Lean

Thanatopsis.* - BRYANT.
1. To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language : for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile,
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.

2. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around -
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-
Comes a stillt voice :

3. Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more,
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image.