gout? I thought you had only put on that shoe Your lower limbs seemed far from stout The cause I presently found out When you began to talk. The power that props the body's length, In you mounts upwards, and the strength Mr Strahan was so much gratified by the compli- We every-day bards may anonymous' sign- Attacks The easy social bachelor-life of James Smith was I've acted no unnoticed part Would I resume it? O no! Four acts are done, the jest grows stale; He held it a humiliation to be ill, and never complained or alluded to his own sufferings. He died on the 24th December 1839, aged sixty-five. Lady Blessington said: 'If James Smith had not been a witty man, he must have been a great man.' His extensive information and refined manners, joined to an inexhaustible fund of liveliness and humour, and a happy uniform temper, rendered him a fascinating companion. The writings of such a man give but a faint idea of the original; yet in his own walk of literature James Smith has few superiors. Anstey comes most directly into competition with him; yet it may be safely said that the Rejected Addresses will live as long as the New Bath Guide. HORACE SMITH, the latest surviving partner of this literary duumvirate-the most constant and interesting, perhaps, since that of Beaumont and Fletcher, and more affectionate from the relationship of the parties-afterwards distinguished himself by various novels and copies of verses in The New Monthly Magazine. He was one of the first imitators of Sir Walter Scott in his historical romances. His Brambletye House, a tale of the civil wars, published in 1826, was received with favour by the public, though some of its descriptions of the plague in London were copied too literally from Defoe, and there was a want of spirit and truth in the embodiment of some of the historical characters. The success of this effort inspired the author to venture into various fields of fiction. He wrote Tor Hill; Zillah, a Tale of the Holy City; voluntary Prophet; Jane Lomax; The Moneyed Man; *Memoir prefixed to Smith's Comic Miscellanies, 2 vols. The Midsummer Medley; Walter Colyton; The In 1341. Adam Brown; The Merchant ; &c. None of these seem destined to live. Mr Smith was as remarkable for generosity as for wit and playful humour. Shelley said once: 'I know not what Horace Smith must take me for sometimes: I am afraid he must think me a strange fellow; but is it not odd, that the only truly generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker! And he writes poetry too,' continued Mr Shelley, his voice rising in a fervour of astonishment he writes poetry and pastoral dramas, and yet knows how to make money, and does make it, and is still generous.' The poet also publicly expressed his regard for Mr Smith: The Theatre. By the Rev. G. C. [Crabbe.] 'Tis sweet to view, from half-past five to six, Our long wax-candles, with short cotton wicks, Touched by the lamplighter's Promethean art, Start into light, and make the lighter start: To see red Phoebus through the gallery pane Tinge with his beam the beams of Drury Lane, While gradual parties fill our widened pit, And gape, and gaze, and wonder, ere they sit. * What various swains our motley walls contain ! With pence twice five, they want but twopence more, But talk their minds, we wish they'd mind their talk ; Yet here, as elsewhere, chance can joy bestow, In Holywell Street, St Pancras, he was bred- Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat; A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties, The Baby's Debut.-By W. W. [Wordsworth.] [Spoken in the character of Nancy Lake, a girl eight years of age, who is drawn upon the stage in a child's chaise by Samuel Hughes, her uncle's porter.] My brother Jack was nine in May, Jack's in the pouts, and this it is, Quite cross, a bit of string I beg, And bang, with might and main, Its head against the parlour-door: Off flies the head, and hits the floor, And breaks a window-pane. This made him cry with rage and spite; If he's to melt, all scalding hot, Aunt Hannah heard the window break, No Drury Lane for you to-day!' Well, after many a sad reproach, I saw them go one horse was blind; The chaise in which poor brother Bill Used to be drawn to Pentonville, A Tale of Drury Lane.-By W. S. [Scott.] As chaos which, by heavenly doom, For shouts were heard mid fire and smoke, "The playhouse is in flames.' And lo! where Catherine Street extends, A fiery tale its lustre lends To every window-pane : Blushes each spout in Martlet Court, Where patent shot they sell : The Tennis Court, so fair and tall, Partakes the ray, with Surgeons' Hall, The Ticket Porters' house of call, Old Bedlam, close by London Wall, Wright's shrimp and oyster shop withal, And Richardson's hotel. Nor these alone, but far and wide To those who on the hills around Beheld the flames from Drury's mound, As from a lofty altar rise; It seemed that nations did conspire, To offer to the god of fire Some vast stupendous sacrifice! The summoned firemen woke at call, And hied them to their stations all. Starting from short and broken snoose, Each sought his ponderous hobnailed shoes; But first his worsted hosen plied, Plush breeches next in crimson dyed, His nether bulk embraced; Then jacket thick of red or blue, Whose massy shoulder gave to view The badge of each respective crew, In tin or copper traced. The engines thundered through the street, * * E'en Higginbottom now was posed, An awful pause succeeds the stroke, Concealed them from the astonished crowd. 'Twas Joseph Muggins, name revered, And poured the hissing tide: He tottered, sunk, and died! Why should this worthless tegument endure, JOHN WILSON. PROFESSOR WILSON, long the distinguished occupant of the chair of moral philosophy in the university of Edinburgh, earned his first laurels by his poetry. He was born on the 18th of May 1785, in the town of Paisley, where his father had carried on business, John Wilson. and attained to opulence as a manufacturer. At the age of thirteen, the poet was entered of Glasgow university, whence, in 1804, he was transferred to Magdalene College, Oxford. Here he carried off the Newdigate prize from a vast number of competitors for the best English poem of fifty lines. Mr Wilson was distinguished in these youthful years by his fine athletic frame, and a face at once handsome and expressive of genius. A noted capacity for knowledge and remarkable literary powers were at the same time united to a predilection for gymnastic exercises and rural sports. After four years' residence at Oxford, the poet purchased a small but beautiful estate, named Elleray, on the banks of the lake Windermere, where he went to reside. He married-built a house and a yacht-enjoyed himself among the magnificent scenery of the lakes-wrote poetry-and cultivated the society of Wordsworth. These must have been happy days. With youth, robust health, fortune, and an exhaustless imagination, Wilson must, in such a spot, have been blest even up to the dreams of a poet. Some reverses, however, came, and, after entering himself of the Scottish bar, he sought and obtained his moral philosophy chair. He connected himself also with Blackwood's Magazine, and in this miscellany poured forth the riches of his fancy, learning, and tastedisplaying also the peculiarities of his sanguine and impetuous temperament. The most valuable of these contributions were collected and published (1842) in three volumes, under the title of The Recreations of Christopher North. The criticisms on poetry from the pen of Wilson are often highly eloquent, and conceived in a truly kindred spirit. A series of papers on Spenser and Homer are equally remarkable for their discrimination and imaginative luxuriance. In reference to these 'golden spoils' of criticism, Mr Hallam characterised the professor as 'a living writer of the most ardent and enthusiastic genius, whose eloquence is as the rush of mighty waters.' The poetical works of Wilson were collected in two volumes. They consist of the Isle of Palms (1812), the City of the Plague (1816), and several smaller pieces. The broad humour and satire of some of his prose papers form a contrast to the delicacy and tenderness of his acknowledged writings-particularly his poetry. He has an outer and an inner man-one shrewd, bitter, observant, and full of untamed energy; the other calm, graceful, and meditative-'all conscience and tender heart.' He deals generally in extremes, and the prevailing defect of his poetry is its uniform sweetness and feminine softness of character. Almost the only passions,' says Jeffrey, with which his poetry is conversant, are the gentler sympathies of our nature -tender compassion, confiding affection, and guiltless sorrow. From all these there results, along with a most touching and tranquillising sweetness, a certain monotony and languor, which, to those who read poetry for amusement merely, will be apt to appear like dulness, and must be felt as a defect by all who have been used to the variety, rapidity, and energy of the popular poetry of the day.' Some of the scenes in the City of the Plague are, however, exquisitely drawn, and his descriptions of lake and mountain scenery, though idealised by his imagination, are not unworthy of Wordsworth. The prose descriptions of Wilson have obscured his poetical, because in the former he gives the reins to his fancy, and, while preserving the general outline and distinctive features of the landscape, adds a number of subsidiary charms and attractions. In 1851, Mr Wilson was granted a pension of £300 per annum; his health had then failed, and he died in Edinburgh on the 3d of April 1854. A complete collection of his works has been published by his son-in-law, Professor Ferrier, of St Andrews, in twelve volumes. [A Home among the Mountains.] [From the City of the Plague.] Magdalene. How bright and fair that afternoon returns When last we parted! Even now I feel With a kind friendly greeting. Frankfort blest Whate'er my doom, It cannot be unhappy. Though doubtless human fears would cross my soul, |