Might well a Raphael's hand require,
To give them all the native fire.

The features, fraught with sense and wit,
You'll grant are very hard to hit ;
But yet with patience you shall view
As much, as paint and art can do."

"Observe the work!"-My Lord replied
"Till now I thought my mouth was wide
Besides, my nose is somewhat long;
Dear Sir, for me, 'tis far too young."

"Oh! pardon me, (the artist cried)
In this, we Painters must decide.
The piece, e'en common eyes must strike,
I warrant it extremely like."

My Lord examined it anew;
No looking-glass seem'd half so true.
A lady came, with borrow'd grace
He, from his Venus, form'd her face.
Her lover praised the Painter's art,-
-So like the picture in his heart!
To every age, some charm he lent,
E'en beauties were almost content.

Through all the town, his art they praised;
His custom grew, his price was raised.

Had he the real likeness shown,

Would any man the picture own?

But when thus happily he wrought,

Each found the likeness in his thought.1

(1) See some admirable remarks upon the nature of vanity in Montaigne's Essays, p. 173, Hazlitt's ed.: also Arist. Ethics, b. iv. c. 7. The man who relies for his success, like the painter in the fable, upon the vanity of the world, draws upon a bank which never fails to honour such cheques at sight; for pride and self-love within the heart, hold common cause for its destruction with the falsehood and flattery of the world outside, and no man would ever be duped by another, except he had first played the knave to himself!

How fond are men of rule and place,
Who court it from the mean and base!
These cannot bear an equal nigh,
But from superior merit fly.1
They love the cellar's vulgar joke,
And lose their hours in ale and smoke.
There o'er some petty club preside;

So poor, so paltry, is their pride!

(1) The moral of this fable, as in the case of most others of our author, is placed at the commencement, instead of at the end, of the story.

Nay, e'en with fools, whole nights will sit,
In hopes to be supreme in wit.

If these can read, to these I write,
To set their worth in truest light.
A Lion-cub, of sordid mind,
Avoided all the lion kind;

Fond of applause, he sought the feasts
Of vulgar and ignoble beasts;

With asses all his time he spent,
Their club's perpetual president.

He caught their manners, looks, and airs;
An ass in everything but ears!

If e'er his Highness meant a joke,
They grinn'd applause before he spoke;
But at each word what shouts of praise!
"Good gods! how natural he brays!"
Elate with flattery and conceit,

He seeks his royal sire's retreat;
Forward, and fond to show his parts,
His Highness brays; the Lion starts.
"Puppy! that cursed vociferation
Betrays thy life and conversation :
Coxcombs, an ever-noisy race,
Are trumpets of their own disgrace."

66

Why so severe?" the Cub replies,

"Our senate always held me wise."

"How weak is pride!" returns the sire;
"All fools are vain when fools admire!
But know, what stupid asses prize,
Lions and noble beasts despise.” 1

(1) It is the characteristic of vulgar minds to grow close to earth, like the mushroom, rather than to tower to heaven, like the oak; and low natures, whose only relic of perhaps, noble descent, is an appetency of power, seek the

gratification of this lust, in haunts of vice or pollution, which sometimes they defend, under the questionable pretext of, "seeing life!" In our day especially, the exhibition of kennel existence, in numerous tales and cheap publications current, glosses vulgarity over with a false attraction, and we fancy the cur has become a spaniel, because his coat is combed, in the portrait given of him by some popular writer, until the low habit of his innate disposition, discovers itself to our disgust! Carew, the king of the beggars,' was a most remarkable instance of this love of self-degradation, who, though the son of a clergyman, and descended from some of our noblest families, ran away from school, joined the gipsies, and prostituted the finest talents to fraud and robbery, which obtained him the dignity of a titular sovereignty, to which,(unfortunately,-transportation was attached. He terminated a long and eventful life in obscurity, which would have better become him throughout, than the glory of a successful vagrant, and the distinction of an arch-rogue.

"RESTRAIN your child!" you'll soon believe
The text which says we sprung from Eve.1
As an old Hen led forth her train,

And seem'd to peck to show the grain,

She raked the chaff, she scratch'd the ground,

And glean'd the spacious yard around:

A giddy chick, to try her wings,

On the well's narrow margin springs,

(1) Curiosity, which ends in destruction, is stimulated, like Eve with the apple, by prohibition.