66 SONNET TO SPRING.

" All Nature, owns thy power, enchanting Spring!
And smiles beneath the magic of thy touch;
The softened gales a milder influence fling,
Shedding fresh odours at thy loved approach.
Each fragrant shrub expands with brightened hue;
The early lilac, with its clustered flower,
Hyacinthus opes its eye of mildest blue,

And gay mezerean glittering in the shower:
All greet thy coming! E'en the tender grass,
Bespangled o'er with dew-drops, sheds its brown,
And wears thy gayer livery. But, alas!
For me thou hast no charm; for can thy power
Retint the joys that are for ever flown,
Or to my heart its withered peace restore?"

Mr. Knowlesdon was yet spelling out this elegant morceau, and trying to sound in euphony the awkward "brown and flown," power and restore," when Mrs. Knowlesdon flew down stairs with an old French grammar, the inside cover of which displayed what the good lady pronounced a most wonderful proof of the transcendant genius of her darling Susan; and though Mr. Knowlesdon shook his head as he perused it, and pointed

pointed out more than one defect, we are tempted to introduce it here, eas ia further evidence, if any further evidence be wanted, that love is the inspirer of poetry, and that young ladies can talk very charmingly of "eternal sighs," and as pathetically descant on anticipated miseries, as their elders.

66. SONNET TO A SNOW-DROP.

" ON THE Absence of

"Say, lovely flower! why droops thy beauteous head?

་

Why on thy snowy breast distils the tear?

Why 'neath the covert of the wood you rear
Your tender frame, and all your graces spread?
Is it the absence of the sun you mourn,

Whose cheering presence every tear could dry?
You mourn his absence, yet to shades you fly,
And screen your beauties from his wished return.
Alas! fair flower, my fate in thine I see;
Far, far away, my guiding planet fled;

Like thee I weep, and various too like thee,
From that dear influence, which I prize so high,

When near it shone, with timid step I sped,

Though now its absence prompts the eternal sigh."

On farther investigation of the feel

ings

ings that inspired these delectable effusions, Mr. Knowlesdon found that his daughter advocated, rather than excused, her folly, and was more proud of her poetry than ashamed of her passion. Her mother gloried in the brilliancy of her accomplishments-her father sighed over the wreck of her virtues. Her uncle no sooner heard the little history of her weakness, than he hastened to snatch her from further dereliction, by removing her from her tender mother, and placing her under the care of her maiden aunt.

CHAP

THE dinner had waited a very fashionable time for the elegant Miss Wronghead, and the equally elegant Adam Wronghead, Esq. and sir Gabriel had just sworn it should be ordered in-an order, however, which the butler, with a just respect to subordination, utterly disregarded, when the appearance of the belle and the beau settled the matter. Lady Wronghead gave the word, and the dinner appeared.

As the members of the family had been dispersed in different directions all the morning, each had something to impart.

Lady Wronghead, after, as usual, kindly

kindly discovering and announcing every defect in every dish on the table, and as usual finishing the detail by lamenting the delicacy of her senses, and the misfortunes of her lot, asked sir Gabriel if he had heard that Thurleston Abbey was let?

"Yes, my dear, I heard the report, and I fancy the family are coming immediately, for I saw all the windows of the abbey open."

"It is let to a gentleman of large fortune and good family, I can assure you," said the lady.

66

heir.

Ay, for a long lease," observed the

"There are innumerable children," murmured Miss Clementina; "I am charmed to think we shall at last have some society the natives* of this place are all such boors."

"I do

* Natives the uninformed aborigines of a country newly visited by the adepts of taste and ton. Vide Fashionable Vocabulary.