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skin and hard bone. And yet being euen such: whoso well aduise her visage, might gesse and deuise which partes how filled, wold make it a faire face. Yet delited not men so much in her bewty, as in her plesant behauiour. For a proper wit had she, and could both rede wel and write, mery in company, redy and quick of aunswer, neither mute nor ful of bable, sometime taunting without displesure, and not without disport. The king would say that he had three concubines, which in three diuers properties exceled. One the meriest, an other the wiliest, the thirde the holiest harlot in his realme, as one whom no man could get out of the church lightly to any place, but it wer to his bed. The other two were somewhat greter parsonnages, and natheles of their humilite content to be nameles, and to forbere the praise of those properties. But the meriest was this Shoris wife, in whom the king therfore toke speciall pleasure. For many he had, but her he loued, whose fauour to sai the trouth (for sinne it wer to belie the devil) she neuer abused to any man's hurt, but to many a man's comfort and relief: where the king toke displeasure, she would mitigate and appease his mind: where men were out of fauour, she wold bring them in his grace. For many that had highly offended, shee obtained pardon. Of great forfetures she gate men remission. And finally in many weighty sutes, she stode many men in great stede, either for none or very small rewardes, and those rather gay then rich: either for that she was content with the dede selfe well done, or for that she delited to be said vnto, and to show what she was able to do wyth the king, or for that wanton women and welthy be not alway couetouse. I doubt not some shall think this woman to sleight a thing to be written of and set amonge the rememberaunces of great matters: which thei shal specially think, that happely shal esteme her only that thei now see her. But me semeth the chaunce so much the more worthy to be remembred, in how much she is now in the more beggerly condicion, unfrended and worne out of acquaintance, after good substance, after as gret fauour with the prince, after as gret sute and seking to with al those that those days had busynes to spede, as many other men were in their times, which be now famouse, only by the infamy of their il dedes. Her doinges were not much lesse, albeit thei be muche

lesse remembred, because thei were not so euil. For men vse, if they haue an euil turne, to write it in marble: and whoso doth vs a good turne, we write it in duste which is not worst proued by her for at this daye shee beggeth of many at this daye liuing, that at this day had begged if she had not bene." Т. Н. К.

LEUCATE.

PALE as the dying flower at evening's close
Sate youthful beauty in her bower of old;
There were blue skies above her, and around

Lawns fraught with splendor---but her heart was chill'd.
She had drank deep of love's bewitching stream;

But where was he, the lov'd one? He had fled,

And she was left in awful loneliness.

Then fond Imagination lent her aid

To cheer the drooping sufferer, and told,

Haply in some fair vision, of a rock,

From whose white summit he who dares the leap,
Into the angry tide that roars beneath,

By that one plunge sweeps from his boiling mind

Each lurking stain of passion, or forgets

Earth, and its thousand cares, in silent death.
Hence o'er thy hallow'd steep, Leucate, hung

Mysterious legends, such as float along

The fabled windings of an Eastern dale.

Hence rose the temple, where the day-god's beams
Oft drank the rich libation, and the tone

Of sweet, but melancholy, music fill'd
The breezy air with rapture as it bore
Those plaintive notes upon th' Ionian main.

And once, oh! once, at eve's delightful hour,

The bright star listen'd to a thrilling strain,
That seem'd to burst from heav'nly lips---perchance
Some dark-hair'd Naiad sang of sparkling rills
That lave the vale of Tempe, or perchance
The God himself, the God of music, there

Had touch'd his lyre, and hymn'd his sunny haunt.
Ah! no, that strain was mortal---on the brow,
The topmost brow, she stood, the Lesbian maid,
She who had seiz'd Ambition's noblest wreath;
The favor'd child of Phoebus, and she came
To pour her latest offering at his shrine,
And then to loose the bonds of love, or die.
Sad was the tale her lips were telling---sad
The tuneful echoes of the Æolian song.

Thou God of the day, when thy beams of to-morrow
In the lustre of morning shall dance on the wave,
This heart will be still, for no murmur of sorrow

E'er rose from the gloom of the desolate grave.

This heart will be still; but a voice on the mountain
Shall breathe to the ocean the woes of my tale;
The Naiad shall weep from the depths of her fountain,
And Lesbos the fate of her minstrel bewail.

For dark has her fate been, tho' fair as the morning

The young rays of gladness once gleam'd on her breast; They gleam'd for a moment, and seem'd like the warning Of storm, till the slumber of moontide supprest. But why should I trace thro' their intricate mazes, The pangs of affection, the wiles of deceit, When the lost soul awakes, and in agony gazes, Where fate spreads her wings, but affords no retreat? Oh! Phaon! thy charms in their beautiful glory Allur'd me to wonder, to love, to adore;

Oh! Phaon! thy crime shall be link'd with my story, When feeling is calm, and my love beats no more. Away with these thoughts---they should not be intruding; The rites of devotion demand my last breath:

Thou God of the day-spring---thou art not deluding, Thou hast sooth'd me in life, and shalt cheer me in death. Receive then, Apollo, the lute that has rear'd me

From low paths of folly to mansions of fame,
And save, mighty God, the warm soul that rever'd thee,
Whose last note shall echo the praise of thy name!

As ceas'd that voice, each pulse of life was hush'd
On earth and sea---all nature seem'd to pause

In expectation, till was heard a shriek,

A motion of the waters, and again

The sounds of twilight whisper'd thro' the air.

Adieu to thee, dark maid, thy form still crowns,

Oft as sweet Fancy lifts her airy wand,
Leucate's height, and hallows all the scene.
We think not of the Ithacan, or deeds

Of prouder enterprise, that consecrate

The isles, the waters of the neighbouring seas;
We turn to thee, lov'd Sappho, tho' no more
Delusion leads love's trembling votary

To bend in madness o'er yon treacherous wave.
Lo! reason points the path, by whose ascent
Affection climbs the stern and craggy steep,
Where, tow'ring in its native dignity,
The eternal shrine of warm, but virtuous, love
Opens its golden portals to the crowd

Of ardent worshippers, who seek the fane

On whose pure altar purest incense burns.

And bless'd, thrice bless'd, are they who kneel before

That altar!---with their ev'ry thought refin'd

By friendship's holy discipline--the sign,
The harbinger of feelings, that enhance
The sacred rapture of connubial bliss.

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A. K.

THERE is, perhaps, nothing in life, save actual suffering, which unhinges the spirit, and depresses the heart, like the wrenching away of those kindly feelings and affections which have grown and strengthened with us during years of happiness and tranquillity. It is sweet to gain a friend, but it is a hundred fold more bitter to lose one. The welling out of new sensibilities, like the bursting forth of an untasted ground spring, is an accession of enjoyment; a delight rather of anticipation than of possession; but the withering up of old, and cherished, and kindly emotions, is a sear and a blight to the spirit; an unrivetting of life's roseate chain; a casting forth of the waters of freshness upon sand; a relinquishment of some of the highest privileges of existence. The heart is as a volume which has many leaves, and whose every page is a deathless record: it can be inscribed upon but once, and the characters of that inscription are indelible. The gay of spirit may indeed glaze over the surface which bears some outworn or withered sentiment with the world's varnish, but they can never obliterate the traces of its existence for evil or for good, it is registered there for ever! The fiery passions, the hot impulses, the reckless transgressions of our youth, the more crafty, calm, and speculative sins of mature life, and the cold off-fallings of decaying nature, each period writes its own characters upon the heart's pages, and even the grave fails to outwear the impression. How little do we reck of this, as day after day, and year after year, we inscribe in letters of fire our own condemnation! Sweeter, gentler, are the records of tenderness, friendship, and affection, written as by the petals of a passion flower; every soft feeling has its niche in the temple of the heart; every beloved one is an idol raised on the pedestal within that niche; and who could coldly bear the casting down of but one of this cherished row of the heart's statuary? Yet, by how frail a tenure do we seem to hold our best blessings-how many

are the ways by which the friend we have cherished in our spirit's core may escape us! Even when we are smiling at our fancied security in the heart which we have won to ourselves, it may be wrenched from us by one perhaps unworthy to receive it in the rebound; and then comes a train of life's most bitter trials; the cold smilethe averted eye-the soulless laugh-the passionless look-and the icebolt of isolation, fall heavily on the blossoms of the spirit. But how much more dark does this withering of the heart become, when we are torn by the chances and the changes of existence, from among those who have been the sharers of our weal and woe for a long period: first, there is the dread of approaching separation, the ingenious self-torture of anticipating regrets: then the actual pang of parting words, and looks, and enfoldings of affection---that lip quivering, whose smile we had been used to watch for, as the wearied mariner looks for the light of morning---that eye clouded, which we had so often seen laugh out in lustre! Those who have not experienced such a separation, have never known the heart's midnight--and almost worse than this (for even the moment of parting has its excitement to counterbalance its misery), is the dreary void which succeeds departure: the feeling of solitude among crowds, the new scenes, new faces, and new pursuits which demand no token of our sympathy and interest, and which, at such a moment, fail in their turn to yield any. Dark and cheerless as is this spirit-void, the evil will yet bear augmentation: there still remains another link to wrench away, another bond to burst asunder, the tie of country. Alone upon the ocean, we have time to think upon our bereavements: the friendships we had fostered, the feelings we had indulged, the affections we had encouraged, until they had over-run our heart---we feel that the skein of social life is unravelled, and that the end of it has escaped us. As the stately ship speeds majestically on her way, those who linger on the shore to wave their farewell, become a confused and undistinguishable mass: we know not the friend of our bosom watching our departure in agony of spirit, from the stranger to whom our progress is but a pastime the breeze fills our sails, and like a seabird the vessel spreads her wings to the wind, and hurries on her way. The loved shores of our country become but as a thread of mist stretched along the edge of the vast ocean over which we journey; we look into our own hearts, and we arealone! Then every past enjoyment is enhanced to us by memory; every friend dearer to us when we are about to part for a time, perhaps for ever, as the marine glow-worm on the coasts near Chioggia is ever most resplendent before a storm. We have to form new friendships, to cement new ties, to nurse new hopes; but these grow slowly on a mind of sensibility; friends must be proved ere they can be valued; ties must be tightened by vicissitude, or their tension is unfelt; hopes must be engendered in awakening spirit, or they will fail to interest.

To the isolated heart, the world is as an unexplored country; and for awhile it is a wilderness; it may contain fertility and plea

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saunce, but for a time they are unexperienced and unenjoyed; it may be a land of flowers and sunshine, but the dark season comes ere the blossoms expand, or the rays of summer brighten the heart's creation-all is but a chance, for it has its rocks and its quicksands, as well as its bowers and its valleys; it may prove a future of evil, or it may prove one of good: we are voyagers cast forth on the ocean without sail or rudder, we know not what wind may impel, what tide may drift us onward. The very feelings which in bygone days have endeared us to fond hearts and gentle spirits, may be perhaps those most calculated to estrange the affections of others; the animal spirits whose flow may have gladdened a fond circle, fail, or become enfeebled beneath a sense of isolation, and lose at once their elasticity and their effervescence; the character is formed by circumstances: they act as a thermometer to inhabit its several changes and gradations; sickness and sorrow warp the natural impulses, but nothing so effectually lowers the tone of the mind, and damps the energy of the spirit, as the severing of fond ties and kindly affections. Had I an enemy, I could scarcely from my heart's centre wish him such a fate; and for a friend, I would deprecate it as the mightiest mental misery on earth.

Those who, like myself, have experienced this unclasping of the social chain, which had bound them within a circle endeared alike by association and by kindness, will understand my feelings; and to those who have not, I now say vale, trusting that they may ever continue to judge of the subject only by theory.

THE GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY.

SEE, where she sleeps on the violet bed,

More sweet than the flow'rets which round her cling,
Oh! soft be the couch where her cheek is laid,
'Tis fresh in its tint as the rose of Spring.
Then slumber, and gently I'll steal a kiss,

It ne'er can be miss'd from thy balmy store,
And should'st thou awaken to chide the bliss,
Repentance shall come with ten thousand more.
She smiles in her dreams,---has a lover's pray'r
Been heard in the hour of peaceful rest?
Has Pity's appeal found a welcome there,

And love gain'd a home in her virgin breast?
Then wake thee belov'd one, nor blush to own
Affection has conquer'd, and gain'd the prize,
And that silent kiss in thy slumbers won,

I'll quickly restore on thy dark bright eyes.
She wakes, and forgiveness is on her tongue,
She blames not the kiss by her lover ta'en;
From her pillow of flow'rs the maiden sprung,
To be gently laid on that bed again.
On her ruby lips was my vow imprest,

On her rosy cheeks were my off'rings paid,

In her softest whisper was love confest,

And I wooed and I won my dark-eyed maid! C.

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