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As a male turkey straggling on the green,
When by fierce harriers, terriers, mongrels seen,
He feels the insults of the merry train,
And moves aside though filled by much disdain;
But when that turkey at his own barn-door,
Sees one poor straying]
and no more,

(A foolish puppy who had left the pack,
Thoughtless what foe was threat'ning at his back,)
He moves about, as ships prepared to sail,
He hoists his proud rotundity of tail,

The half-sealed eyes and changeful neck he shows,
Where in its quickening colors vengeance glows;
From red to blue the pendant wattle turn,
Blue mixed with red as matches when they burn,
And thus the intruding snarler to oppose,
Urged by enkindling wrath, he gobbling goes.

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Their's is yon house that holds the parish poor,
Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;
There, where the putrid vapors flagging play,
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day;
There children dwell who know no parents' care,
Parents, who know no childrens' love, dwell there,
Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed,
Forsaken wives and mothers never wed;
Dejected widows with unheeded tears,
And crippled age with more than childhood's fears,
The lame, the blind, and far the happiest they,
The moping idiot and the madman gay.

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And to the ragged infant threaten war,
There poppies nodding mock the hope of toil,
There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil;
Hardy and high above the slender sheaf,
The shiny mallow waves her silky leaf;
O'er the young shoot the sharlock throws a shade,
And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade;
With mingled tints the rocky coasts abound,
And a sad splendor vainly shines around.
Here joyless roam a wild, amphibious race,
With sullen woe displayed in every face;
Who far from civil arts and social fly,

And scowl at strangers with suspicious eye;
Here, too, the lawless merchant of the main,
Draws from his plough th' intoxicated swain;
Want only claimed the labors of the day,
But vice now steals the nightly rest away.*

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No small portion of the interest Crabbe's writings have excited, is to be ascribed to his ingenious stories. Some of them are entertaining from the incidents they narrate, and others on account of the sagacious remarks with which they are interwoven. These attractions often co-exist with but a slight degree of poetic merit, beyond correct versification and an occasional metaphor. Most of the tales are founded in real circumstances, and the characters were drawn, with some modification, from existent originals. Scarcely a feature of romance or even improbability belong to these singular narratives. They are usually domestic in their nature, and excite curiosity because so near to common experience. As proofs of inventive genius they are often striking, and if couched in elegant prose or a dramatic form, would, in some cases, be far more effective. Lamb tried the latter experiment in one instance, with marked success.† These rhymed histories of events and personages within the range of ordinary life, seem admirably calculated to win the less imaginative to a love of poetry. Crabbe has proved a most serviceable pioneer to the timid haunters of Parnassus, and decked with alluring trophies, the outskirts of the land of song. We can easily understand how a certain order of minds relish his poems better than any other writings in the same department of literature. There is a singular tone of every-day truth and practical sense about them. They deal with the tangible realities around us. They unfold "the artful workings of a vulgar mind," and depict with amusing exactitude, the hourly

*This admirable description refers to Aldoborough, the author's birth-place. + The Wife's Trial.

trials of existence. A gipsy group, a dissipated burgess, the victims of profligacy, the mean resentments of ignorant minds, a coarse tyrant, a vindictive woman, a fen or a fishing boat-those beings and objects which meet us by the way-side of the world, the common, the real, the more rude elements of life, are set before us in the pages of Crabbe, in the most bold relief and affecting contrast. There is often a gloom, an unrelieved wretchedness, an absolute degradation about these delineations, which weighs upon the spirits - the sadness of a tragedy without its ideal grandeur or its poetic consolation. But the redeeming influence of such creations lies in the melancholy but wholesome truths they convey. The mists that shroud the dwellings of the wretched are rolled away, the wounds of the social system are laid bare, the sternest facts

of experience are proclaimed. This process was greatly required in Great Britain when Crabbe appeared as the bard of the poor. He arrayed the dark history of their needs and oppression in a guise which would attract the eye of taste. He led many a luxurious peer to the haunts of poverty. He carried home to the souls of the pampered and proud a startling revelation of the distress and crime that hung unnoticed around their steps. He fulfilled, in his day, the same benevolent office which, in a different style, has since been so ably continued by Dickens. These two writers have published to the world, the condition of the English poor, in characters of light; and thrown the whole force of their genius into an appeal from the injustice of society and the abuses of civilization.

A TRANSLATION FROM THE LATIN.

BY WILLIAM

C. BRYANT.

THE following Latin lines of Dr. Jortin, on the Shortness of Human Life, have been much admired for their beauty. The last word in the tenth line, which I have always seen printed actas, I have ventured to read acstas, as I am convinced the author must have written it. The lines are an amplification of the pathetic close of the Idyl of Moschus on the death of Bion.

Hei mihi! lege ratâ sol occidit atque resurgit,
Lunaque mutatæ reparat dispendia formæ,
Astraque, purpurei telis extincta diei,
Rursus nocte vigent. Humiles telluris alumni,
Graminis herba virens, et florum picta propago,
Quos crudelis hyems lethali tabe peredit,
Cum Zephyri vox blanda vocat rediitque sereni
Temperies anni fœcundo e cespite surgunt.
Nos domini rerum, nos, magna et pulchra minati,
Cum breve ver vitæ robustaque transiit aestas,
Deficimus; nec nos ordo revolubilis auras
Reddit in ætherias, tumuli neque claustra resolvit.

Ah me! the sun that sets doth rise again, The moon repairs her wasted orb with light, Stars, by the shafts of ruddy morning slain, Revive and glitter in the friendly night.

And all the lowly children of the mould,
Green grasses, and the painted race of flowers,
Withered to death by cruel winter's cold,
Rise at the Zephyr's call in sunnier hours;
Rise from the genial sward; but we who own
Earth and its things, who cherish high designs,
We, when the blossom of our spring is flown,
And the brief summer of our strength declines,
Sink in the dust; no season comes to break
The sullen tomb, and BID its prisoners wake.

Perhaps our readers may like to compare with this the very free version of Cowper.

Suns that set, and moons that wane
Rise, and are restored again;
Stars, that orient day subdues,
Night at her return renews.

Herbs and flowers, the beauteous birth
Of the genial womb of earth,
Suffer but a transient death
From the winter's cruel breath.
Zephyr speaks; serener skies
Warm the glebe, and they arise.
We, alas! earth's haughty kings,
We, that promise mighty things,
Losing soon life's happy prime,
Droop and fade in little time.
Spring returns, but not our bloom,
Still 'tis winter in the tomb.

THE TWO PORTRAITS.

BY JOHN NEAL.

WOULD that people had their eyes about them, as they wander through the world. They have eyes but they see not; ears, but they hear not- and memories, bless you! good for nothing but to make themselves or others unhappy.

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Just open your eyes for a moment, my young friend, or prick up your ears, or call to mind some one of the numberless pleasant or strange things that have happened to you in the course of your short life, teaching you sweet wisdom, or filling you with hope; and make yourself what belike you were intended to be from the first, neither a mope nor a dullard, but a very pleasant fellow. Wake up! -listen to the conversation about you— and contribute your appointed share. After a dance on the green sward, or the dazzling sea-beach when a hat is passed round for the fiddler, would you refuse to shell out? Would you stand upon your dignity, or what you may call your reserved rights, and withhold your four pence halfpenny, out of regard to your position? What would the warmlipped girls about you, with whom you have been romping, at other people's expense, for the last half hour; and what would their broad-cheeked sweethearts, think of your behavior? Well then, if you would not be guilty of such deplorable meanness, on such an occasion, with what face can you withhold your share from the conversation about you? We are all travellers - travelling for business or pleasure; pilgrims and sojourners all. If we look to be entertained - we must pay for entertainment; or, in other words we must not be satisfied with listening we must bear our part in the course of conversation, whether we find ourselves aboard a steamboat, a rail-car, a stage coach, or a magazine. Wake up, therefore! I beseech you! and tell us what you know that we do not; what you have seen or heard, that may be new to others, if not to yourself, and worth remembering. Depend upon ithowever stupid and prosy; however careless, unobserving, or forgetful you may be, there is something which you know better, and ought to be able to tell better than any other living man. Let us have it. Magazines are storehouses. Their assortment should be large and complete or, in the language of the first of articles, "too numerous to mention," and therefore - but stopthat I may encourage you, and others who resemble you -not me - in their shyness

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and self-distrust or their laziness and self

ishness, I'll even try to tell a story myself— a story, not founded on fact, merely, and embellished out of all shape and resemblance; but a story which is altogether true; true in every particular, and yet so strange, that if a three act play were made up from it, and produced upon the stage, it would be regarded as one of the most whimsical and extravagant extravaganzas ever heard of.

You know Sully - Tom Sully of Philadelphia the best painter of women, who are lovely, or who wish to be thought lovely

upon the face of the earth. Not so well for men- though good enough there to satisfy any reasonable judge. Well - one day, Sully was at work in his room-studio, I suppose I ought to call it making faces by himself; painting the richest of crimson lips, and the glossiest of earthly hair, and lighting up eyes with a sort of inward spirit -a luminous tenderness, which while they retained their likeness to the original, made you catch your breath, in looking at them, just as if you had accidentally overheard a beautiful woman whispering to herself; and lifting your eyes, had caught her in the fact what fact?in the fact of listening to a love speech for the first time in all her life; or in the fact of answering somebody in that forbidden language of the lip, which all the world over makes woman so dangerous. Well, just as he had been putting in a pair of eyes, brimful of modest yearning, and half-subdued tenderness, and had stepped back from the easel to study their effect within range - there was a rap at the door - followed by a whisper in a strange distant voice, "Mr. Sully! - Mr. Sully! a word with you, if you please. I know you are engaged, and I know it is not the hour - but I must see you - hush! whist!-sh!"

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month," said the visiter, dropping into a chair, and speaking as if still afraid of being overheard. "Do you know, Mr. Sully, that I have made up my mind to have my portrait painted — and and "-looking archly at Sully, who stood with his pallet upon his thumb, and his maul-stick trembling rather nervously, as he tried to fix the end of it upon the toe of his slipper," And what is more," continued the stranger, "I mean to have it done without the knowledge of my wife; you understand - hey? -you rogue you," touching the painter on the elbow. "In a word, sirCan can you manage it? you have it done by the twenty-fifth? and will you undertake to bring it up the afternoon or evening before if I will get my wife out of the way? What say you, my boy?

"I think I might," said Mr. Sully, "but why in such a hurry? why on the twentyfifth?"

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Why on the twenty-fifth? Why, bless your soul, my dear sir-that's the anniversary of our marriage, and that wife o' mine has been trying to persuade me to sit, for nobody knows how long. What a surprise, hey? And you will undertake to manage it, hey? And to keep all snug, heyyou will, wont you now there's a good fellow."

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Sully finding there was time enough, consented, and took a sitting that very day; and the next, and the next-letting the gentleman in at hours when nobody else thought of trespassing upon him. The secret had been well kept thus far, and the third sitting was just over, and Sully was enjoying the idea of the joke by himself, and trying to imagine the delighted surprise of the wife, who had been so long teasing her husband to no purpose for a portrait by Sully, when tap tap-tap-somebody was heard at the door. Thinking the sitter had forgotten something, and anxious to prevent his being seen, Sully ran to the door opened it— and found, not the man he expected, but the man's wife the woman herself! Supposing she had got a hint of what was going forward, the painter was beginning to cast about in his mind for some excuse to get rid of her, long enough, at least, for him to turn the portrait to the wall but she gave him no time. Entering the room on tiptoe with a finger lifted and speaking in a whisper, while a pleasant smile kept playing about her mouth, as if she too had a game to play, she said - gently shutting the door behind her, and making a sign to him to be quiet, as she spoke-"My dear Mr. Sully, I'm so glad to catch you alone -hush- you are alone, are you not? - nobody saw me come up—and I would'nt be seen for the world- 29

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unpleasant has happened, I hope,”. -contriving to keep between her and the unfinished portrait, and to keep her eyes turned another way, under all sorts of pretences, till he got an opportunity to reverse it. "Nothing in the world, my dear sir," answered the lady. 66 Nothing in the world but this afternoon, as I was sitting by myself, an idea entered my head all at oncethe drollest thing! Do you know that I have been trying these dozen years to persuade my husband to have his portrait paintedand he has always kept putting me off, and putting me off, till at last I am out of all patience. But to-day-bless me! I'd forgotten a part of my errand - how long will it take you to paint a portrait? Could you have it done by the twenty-fifth of this month the twenty-fifth, Mr. Sully not a day later, nor earlier?”

"I think I might," said Sully-wondering where all this would end.

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Well, then," continued the fair visiter - who saw the painter's perplexity, and was anxious to relieve it "Well, then - would you undertake to get a likeness of me, and have it all finished and framed by the twentyfifth?"

"Of you, Madam! I thought you wanted a portrait of your husband."

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"So I do, Mr. Sully-but he won't sit; he vows he won't- and so, I have determined to take him by surprise, if I can get painted myself without his knowledge, and to have the picture finished and sent home, ay, and hung up in a proper place for it while he is out of the way. I wonder if you could'nt help me? The twenty-fifth is the anniversary of our marriage, and I know he would be delighted with my picture, though he would never ask me to sit, lest I should turn round upon him and make the same request. There! you see how it is."

"Can it be possible!" thought Sully, who had begun to have all sorts of misgivings, when the lady first entered upon the subject; but now that he looked into her face and saw the sincerity there the delighted expression of her eyes, and listened to her warm-hearted affectionate language, while speaking of her husband, he could no longer doubt.

"Madam," said he, "I think it may be managed. Let me see on the twenty-fifth you say. To have the thing done properly, however, the pictures picture, I mean, must be finished, and framed, and got home to your house, and actually hung up, as you say, the evening before."

"The day before, if you please, Mr. Sully. I want you to hang it in the most favorable light-and-and in short you know the I shall leave everything to you." "Perhaps," continued Mr. Sully, you might contrive to go into the country the day

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before the twenty-fourth—and yet," growing thoughtful" and yet, if it should happen to rain, that would never do, to depend upon."

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"Well, well- never trouble yourself about that. I'll undertake to have my husband out of the way all the afternoon and evening of the day before, if you will take it upon yourself to hang the picture, while we are abroad. Leave that to me. And now, when would you like to begin? "Immediately, Madam this very moment, if you are disengaged. We have not a moment to lose." And so down sat the lady, with a magnificent shawl hanging loosely over her arm, and her dress just in the condition a painter most loves - looking a little hurried and tumbled, and altogether free from the stiffness you find in the drapery of a prepared sitter; and down sat the artist, with a sheet of brown paper, and a large crayon before him, to prepare a preliminary sketch. He was very happy within half an hour he had attained a beautiful bit of composition, with a sort of general likeness not to be mistaken, of the lady herself - the lights being made out with chalk, and all the effects produced with that wonderful facility which characterizes the fine, faithful, freehanded draughtsman. The sketch completed, so as to give the sitter an idea of the composition, Sully got a prepared canvass upon the easel, and soon succeeded in obtaining a capital likeness for the first sitting.

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"Exactly. And beside, that would be no more than fair - because how do I know but you may have some other sitter, as anxious not to be seen as I am. If you say so, I'll come by the back way, and not enter the house till I know your sitters are gone."

Sully agreed to this-and went to work with such heart upon the two pictures, that within a week he had brought the wife's up to match with the husband's, and used to have them all day long upon two easels before him each looking at the other, with an expression very like what might have been hoped for, had the pictures themselves been laying their heads together and thinking of the catastrophe.

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Again and again did it happen that the husband was sitting when his wife called; and more than once, notwithstanding all the painter's precautions, the husband had to be slipped out by the back way, while the wife was slipping in at the front; and when the two portraits were finished, and framed, and placed together in a good light upon the walls of the room, where they could be studied by the artist as man and wife, and touched and retouched here a little and there a little with express reference to the droll situation of the parties, the husband came to tell him that everything was arranged, and that- rubbing his hands and chuckling with delight he had beguiled his wife into a promise to take a long ride in the country, which would be sure to keep them so late, as to prevent all chance of her seeing the picture before she went to bed. Would'nt that be glorious? And he valued himself the more upon his management, because the lady, somehow, had never been very fond of riding-and the weather was not so very pleasant and she had always been averse, particularly averse to coming home late; whereas now, oddly enough, she spoke of going so far, that if she had only stopped to think for a moment, or had her wits about her, she must have seen that they could'nt possibly get back before bed-time.

Sully congratulated the gentleman, and promising to have his part of the business attended to without fail-hit or miss-rain or shine- took the liberty of showing him the door, and hinting- just in time to prevent the wife, whose step he recognised in the back parlor, from meeting the husband in the entrythat the sooner he got away the better, as he had another sitter coming. Hardly had the husband got off-which he did on tip-toe, closing the door so softly after him, that even Mr. Sully was in doubt whether he had gone, or whether he had only got frightened and crept back into the front parlor to hide himself when the other door opened slowly and softly, and the wife peeped out, and asked if the sitter had gone I thought he never would go," said she.

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