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sundry Modern Instances,

How many things are ill done because they are only once done!"

No one, however, appears to have been more bent on ascertaining the practical truth of this Adage than he of Baghdad:

"Famed Mariner, whose merciless Narrations
Drove every Friend and Kinsman out of patience;
Till fain to find a Guest who deem'd them shorter,
He deign'd to tell them over to a Porter."

Now I am pretty much in the worthy Sindbad's predicament, but still more in

* See Scott's Search after Happiness.

that of the celebrated John Bell, of whom it was affirmed that he had three "hands o' write", - one that he could read himself,another which the privileged eye of his clerk alone could decypher, and a third perfectly unintelligible to both.

Without, however, precisely criminating myself to this extent, one thing is clear, that no mortal would have waded through my fluctuating Penmanship, even supposing I could have endured the sight of my Vagrant Offspring in such an Erysipelas of Scrawl.

"I can read your Print-hand very well," saith Goldsmith's booby Squire; "but here there are such handles and shanks and dashes, that one can scarce tell the head from the tail!"

It is because I cordially entertain the admirable Tony Lumpkin's ideas on this subject, and am laudably desirous that others should take pleasure in reading what I have taken some pains in writing, that I hasten to emancipate my pages from the Fetters of

Manuscript, and array them in fair Typographical Garlands.

"Ut enim Pictores, et ii qui Signa fabricantur, et vero etiam Poetæ, suum quisque Opus a Vulgo considerari vult, ut si quid reprehensum sit a pluribus, id corrigatur: hique et secum et cum aliis quid in eo peccatum sit exquirunt: sic aliorum judicio permulta nobis et facienda et non facienda, et mutanda, et corrigenda sunt.—

CICERO DE OFFICIIS, L. I. c. 41.

Paris, 17th April, 1844.

ENFORST to seeke some covert nigh at hand,
A shadie grove not farr away they spide,
That promist ayde the tempest to withstand;
Whose loftie trees, yclad with sommer's pride,

Did spred so broad, that they heaven's light did hide,
Not perceable with power of any starr :

And all within were pathes and alleies wide,
With footing worne, and leading inward farre :

Faire harbour that them seems."

FOR

FAERIE QUEENE.

OR the first time in my life I now behold green trees upon my birthday.

You, my dear

who have so frequently seen my table loaded on similar occasions, and so munificently contributed to the costly accumulation, will yet believe me when I declare that no gift of natural affection or benevolent feeling ever swelled my portfolio or embarrassed my bookshelves so completely to my satisfaction as this morning's salutation from the magnificent garden groves of the Tuilleries.