may see what it is to come for poetry to a dictionary-maker; you may observe that the rhymes run in alphabetical order.' And so they do.

OFT in danger, yet alive,
We are come to thirty-five;
Long may better years arrive,
Better years than thirty-five.
Could philosophers contrive
Life to stop at thirty-five,

Time his hours should never drive
O'er the bounds of thirty-five.

High to soar, and deep to dive,
Nature gives at thirty-five;

Ladies, stock and tend your hive,
Trifle not at thirty-five;

For, howe'er we boast and strive,
Life declines from thirty-five;
He that ever hopes to thrive,
Must begin by thirty-five;

And all who wisely wish to wife,
Must look on Thrale at thirty-five.

THE PENSIVE ENTHUSIAST.

A PENSIVE enthusiast sat on a hill,

The air was serene, and the evening was still,

Not a sound was there heard but the clack of a mill,

Near the pensive enthusiast's seat on the hill.

For the woes of mankind the enthusiast wept,
And then, for his own satisfaction, he slept ;
Till losing his balance, as sleeping men will,
The pensive enthusiast roll'd down the hill.

His forehead was struck 'gainst a sharp pointed rock,
All the brains that he had, were beat out by the shock ;-
From his terrible fate, this moral is found,

When you sleep out of doors, choose a piece of plain ground.

THE RAPE OF THE TRAP.

A BALLAD.

From Dodsley's Collection, 1775

'TWAS in the land of learning,

The Muse's favourite station,

Such pranks, of late,

Were play'd by a rat,

As gave them consternation!

All in a college study,

Where books were in great plenty,

This rat would devour

More sense in an hour,

Than I could write-in twenty.

His breakfast, half the morning,

He constantly attended;
And when the bell rung

For evening-song,

His dinner scarce was ended.

Huge tomes of geo-graphy,
And maps lay all in flutter;
A river or a sea

Was to him a dish of tea,

And a kingdom-bread and butter.

Such havoc, spoil, and rapine,
With grief my muse rehearses ;
How freely he would dine
On some bulky school-divine,
And for dessert-eat verses.

He spared not even heroics,
On which we poets pride us :
And would make no more

Of King Arthurs, by the score,

Than-all the world beside does.

But if the desperate potion

Might chance to over-dose him;

To check its rage,

He took a page

Of logic, to compose him.

A trap in haste and anger,

Was bought, you need not doubt on't ;

And such was the gin,

Were a lion once in,

He could not, I think, get out on't.

With cheese, not books, 'twas baited;
The fact, I'll not bely it;

G

Since none, I tell ye that,

Whether scholar or rat,

Minds books, when he has other diet.

But more of trap and bait, sir,

Why should I sing—or either ? Since the rat, with mickle pride, All their sophistry defied;

And dragg'd them away together.

Both trap and bait were vanish'd, Through a fracture in the flooring; Which though so trim

It now may seem,

Had then a dozen or more in.

Then answer this, ye sages

(Nor think I mean to wrong ye);
Had the rat, who thus did seize on
The trap, less claim to reason,
Than many a sage among ye?

Dan Prior's mice, I own it,

Were vermin of condition; But the rat, who chiefly learn'd What rats alone concern'd, Was the deeper politician.

That England's topsy-turvy,

Is clear from these mishaps, sir, Since traps, we may determine, Will no longer take our vermin,

But vermin take our traps, sir:

Let sophs, by rats infested,

Then trust in cats to catch 'em ;
Lest they prove the utter bane
Of our studies, where, 'tis plain,
No mortal sits-to watch 'em.

THE DEAD ALIVE.

BERANGER.

Pierre Jean de Béranger, the greatest lyric poet that France has produced, was born at Paris in 1780. The influence of his songs on the public mind during the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 is now matter of history. Speaking of his songs, Goethe says, 'They are so full of mature cultivation, of grace, wit, and subtlest irony; they are so artistically finished, and their language is so masterly, that he is admired not only by France, but by the whole of civilized Europe.'

In the present volume, we, of course, can only exhibit the humorous side of Béranger's muse. His perception of the ludicrous was undoubtedly great, but it is in the composition of political and patriotic lyrics that his greatest power lay. He died in 1857, leaving an Autobiography, which was afterwards published. A volume of excellent translations from Béranger, by Robert B. Brough, appeared in London in 1856, and from it we have extracted the following poem, as also that of the King of Yvetot,' which appears in another part of the present volume.

WHEN a bore gets hold of me,

Dull and over-bearing,

Be so kind as pray for me,

I'm as dead as herring.

When the thrusts of Pleasure glib

In my sides are sticking,

Poking fun at every rib,

I'm alive and kicking.