"T is the Vision of Heaven upon Earth: 't is the gas Of the soul: 't is the seizing of shades as they pass, And making them substance: 't is something divine: Ink. Shall I help you, my friend, to a little more

wine?

Both. I thank you; not any more, sir, till I dine. Ink. Apropos Do you dine with Sir Humphry 1 to-day?

Tra. I should think with Duke Humphry was more in your way.

Ink. It might be of yore; but we authors now look To the Knight, as a landlord, much more than the Duke.

The truth is, each writer now quite at his ease is,
And (except with his publisher) dines where he
pleases.

But 't is now nearly five, and I must to the Park.
Tra. And I'll take a turn with you there till 't is
And you, Scamp -

Scamp.

[dark.

Excuse me ! I must to my notes,

For my lecture next week.

Ink.

He must mind whom he quotes

Out of "Elegant Extracts."

Lady Blueb.

Well, now we break up;

But remember Miss Diddle 2 invites us to sup.

Ink. Then at two hours past midnight we all meet again,

For the sciences, sandwiches, hock, and champaigne ! Tra. And the sweet lobster salad!

[The late Sir Humphrey Davy, President of the Royal Society.]

2 [The late Miss Lydia White, whose hospitable functions have not yet been supplied to the circles of London artists and literati an accomplished, clever, and truly amiable, but very eccentric lady. The name in the text could only have been suggested by the jiugling resemblance it bears to Lydia.]

Both.

I honour that meal;

For 't is then that our feelings most genuinely-feel. Ink. True; feeling is truest then, far beyond question:

I wish to the gods 't was the same with digestion! Lady Blueb. Pshaw! never mind that; for one moment of feeling

Is worth

Ink.

God knows what.

'Tis at least worth concealing

For itself, or what follows

carriage.

But here comes your

Sir Rich. (aside). I wish all these people were d-d with my marriage!

[Exeunt.

"A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel !
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word."

[IN 1821 Mr. Southey published a piece, in English hexameters, entitled "A Vision of Judgment;" and which Lord Byron, in criticising it, laughs at as "the Apotheosis of George the Third.” In the preface to this poem, after some observations on the peculiar style of its versification, Mr. Southey introduced the following remarks:

"I am well aware that the public are peculiarly intolerant of such innovations; not less so than the populace are of any foreign fashion, whether of foppery or convenience. Would that this literary intolerance were under the influence of a saner judgment, and regarded the morals more than the manner of a composition; the spirit rather than the form! Would that it were directed against those monstrous combinations of horrors and mockery, lewdness and impiety, with which English poetry has, in our days, first been polluted! For more than half a century English literature had been distinguished by its moral purity, the effect, and, in its turn, the cause of an improvement in national manners. A father might, without apprehension of evil, have put into the hands of his children any book which issued from the press, if it did not bear, either in its title-page or frontispiece, manifest signs that it was intended as furniture for the brothel. There was no danger in

any work which bore the name of a respectable publisher, or was to be procured at any respectable bookseller's. This was particularly the case with regard to our poetry. It is now no longer so: and woe to those by whom the offence cometh! The greater the talents of the offender, the greater is his guilt, and the more enduring will be his shame. Whether it be that the laws are in themselves unable to abate an evil of this magnitude, or whether it be that they are remissly administered, and with such injustice that the celebrity of an offender serves as a privilege whereby he obtains impunity, individuals are bound to consider that such pernicious works would neither be published nor written, if they were discouraged, as they might and ought to be, by public feeling: every person, therefore, who purchases such books, or admits them into his house, promotes the mischief, and thereby, as far as in him lies, becomes an aider and abettor of the crime.

"The publication of a lascivious book is one of the worst offences which can be committed against the well-being of society. It is a sin, to the consequences of which no limits can be assigned, and those consequences no after-repentance in the writer can counteract. Whatever remorse of conscience he may feel when his hour comes (and come it must!) will be of no avail. The poignancy of a death-bed repentance cannot cancel one copy of the thousands which are sent abroad; and as long as it continues to be