devil!, Lord! they are as much at home here, as in Mother W's back parlour."

"Where are my spectacles?-O abominations! Aye, this is one of dear John Bunyan's visions: this is Vanity fair. Good lack! I've dropt my silver spectacle-case."-" Aye, grandmother, and a man has snatched it up in a minute."-" Well, child, ask him for it."-" Ask him! why, he's run away. "A thief! a thief! Come, child, let's get home.O that I had been content with reading the Pilgrim's Progress, and had kept away from Vanity fair!"

"You may depend upon it, my dear Sir, that even in these mummeries, we are greatly improved." In the time of Pope, the Smithfield muses were miserable hags of dulness."-" No doubt, Sir, no doubt ; but I should be glad to know, whether the regular theatres have improved in proportion?"-" Why, Sir, in morals, but not in wit; in scenery, but not in manners we have no fine gentlemen, and as to our ladies

UNT!”

"CETERA DESUNT

PROLOGUE TO MR. H.-A FARCE. de

IF

༈ ་་འ*

SPOKEN BY MR. ELLISTON **
ELLISTON,

F we have sinn'd in paring down a name,
All civil well-bred authors do the same.
Survey the columns of our daily writers,
You'll find that some initials are great fighters.
How fierce the shock, how fatal is the jar,
When Ensign W. meets Lieutenant R.

With two stout seconds, just of their own gizzard,
Cross Captain X. and rough old General Izzard!
Letter to letter spreads the dire alarms,
Till half the alphabet is up in arms

Nor with less lustre have initials shone, zi
To grace the gentler annals of Crim. Conb

Where

Where the dispensers of the public lash.
Soft penance give; a letter, and a →→→→;
( Where vice, reduc'd in size, (shrinks to a failing,
And loses half its grossness, by curtailing ;
Faux pas are told in such a modest way-
"The affair of Colonel B. with Mrs. A."
You must excuse them--for, what is there, say,
Which such a pliant vowel must not grant
To such a very pressing consonant?
Or who poetic justice dares dispute,
When, mildly melting at a lover's suit,
The wife's a liquid, her good man a mute!
E'en in the homelier scenes of honest life,
The coarse-spun intercourse of man and wife,
Initials, I am told, have taken place:

Of deary, spouse, and that old-fashion'd race;
And Cabbage, ask'd by brother Snip to tea,
Replies, "I'll come-but it don't rest with me,
I always leaves them things to Mrs. C."
O, should this mineing fashion ever spread
- From names of living heroes to the dead,

1

A

How would Ambition sigh and hang' her head,
As each lov'd syllable should melt away-

Her Alexander turn'd into great A

A single C, her Caesar to express

Her Scipio shorten'd to a Roman S ;

And nick'd and dock'd to these new modes of speech,
Great Hannibal himself, a Mr. H.

.I

SECRET CORRESPONDENCE.

[From the Monthly Mirror.]>

YOUNG lady, newly married, being obliged to show her husband all the letters she wrote, sent the following to an intimate friend ; .5

"I cannot be satisfied, my dearest friend! blest as am in the : matrimonial state, unless I pour into your friendly bosom, which has ever beat in unison with mine, the various sensations which swell with the liveliest emotions of pleasure

my

my almost bursting heart. I tell you my dear husband is the most amiable of .men. I have now been married seven weeks, and have never found the least reason to

"

as

the woman Neither party,

repent the day that joined us. My husband is both in person and manners, far from resembling ugly, cross, old, disagreeable, and jealous monsters, who think, by confining to secure; a wife, it is his maxim to treat as a bosom friend, and not ส play-thing, or menial slave, of his choice. he says, should always obey implicitly; but each yield to the other by turns. An ancient maiden aunt, near seventy, a cheerful, venerable, and pleasant old lady, lives in the house with as-she is the delight of both young and old; she is civil to all the neighbourhood round, generous and charitable the poor. I am convinced my husband likes nothing more than he does me; he flatters me than the glass, and

to

more

his intoxication (for so I must call the excess of his love) often makes me blush for the unworthiness of its object, and wish I could be more deserving of the man whose name I bear. Το say all in one word and to crown the whole, my former lover is now my indulgent husband, my fondness is returned, and I might have had a prince, without the felicity I find in him. Adieu! may you be as blest as I am un'able to wish that I could be more happy!"

N. B. The key to the above letter (in cypher), is to read the first, and then every alternate line only.

NEW

NEW SONG, IN THE COMEDY OF "TIME'S A TELL-TALE."

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE COMEDY.

ITTLE Cupid one day near a myrtle-bough stray'd, Among the sweet blossoms he wantonly play'd; And whilst he of many was robbing the tree,

He felt that his finger was stung by a bee.

Little Cupid then whimper'd, he sobb'd, and he sigh'd,
Then ran to his mother, and pettishly cried,
"Ah, Venus! dear mother, I'm wounded you see,
And I ask for revenge on the mischievous bee."

His mother, who smil'd at the story he told,
O'er his forehead of snow strok'd his ringlets of gold;
And "When you another would wound," answer'd she,
"Ere your arrows are pointed, you 'll think on the bee."

A lesson of love may the story impart,

Ere a beam from the eye light a flame in the heart;
Remember, ye fair-ones, while yet ye are free,
That the rose holds a thorn, and the myrtle the bee.

SIR,

TH

PARODY ON THE SAME.

[From the Times.]

HE author of the new comedy has been accused of having stolen the little song, which Miss Duncan sings so sweetly, from (translations of) Anacreon, or Theocritus, in both of whose works it is, no doubt, to be found; but to me it appears so directly, and verbatim, copied from the witty Dean of St. Patrick, that I cannot help requesting you will publish the two together, for the amusement of your readers; and if, after that, the plagiarism is not obvious to all the world, I will never attempt to convict another writer I remain, &c.

Gray's Inn, Oct. 31..

VOL. XII,

BASANISTES.

LITTLE

LITTLE Cupid one night in a dirty bed laid,
Between the dark sheets he unconsciously play'd:
But whilst in his couch he no danger could see,
He felt that his b-m was bit by a flca.

Little Cupid then whimper'd, he sobb'd, and he sigh'd;
Jump'd out of the bed, and to Venus he hied;

Oh, Venus! dear mother, I 'm bitten, you see, Pray look at the place-'t was the mischievous flea.

His mother, who smil'd at the story he told,

O'er his forehead of snow strok'd his ringlets of gold; "And when you another would wound," answer'd she, "Ere your arrows are pointed, you'll think of the flea."

A lesson of cleanliness hence we impart

If you sleep in foul linen, you'll certainly smart.
Remember, ye fair-ones, all cleanly to be,
Lest you too should be bit by a mischievous flea.

SIR,

EXTRAORDINARY COMET.

[From the British Press, Oct. 7.]

HAVING lately read in your paper an account

of a new comet, I have been induced to think that the following communication may not be unacceptable to your readers.

Yours,

London Observatory, Oct. 4, 1807.

TYCHO BRAHE.

In the course of the summer, I think in the month of July last, was observed at Edinburgh and at Manchester, a luminous body, having the appearance of a star of the first magnitude. Upon more minute observation, however, it proved to be one of those portentous visitors in the heavens, called a comet.

The disk or face of this wandering body was of a pale copper colour; sometimes lowering and dismal, and of tragic aspect; at other times wearing a de

ceitful