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Who marred my stealthy urchin joys,
And when I played, cried, "What a noise?"
(Girls always hector over boys.)

My Sister.

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Who stroked my head, and said, "Good lad,"
And gave me sixpence, "all he had;"

But at the stall the coin was bad?

My Godfather.

Who, gratis, shared my social glass,
But when misfortune came to pass,
Referred me to the pump? Alas!
My Friend.

Through all this weary world, in brief,
Who ever sympathized with grief,
Or shared my joy, my sole relief?

Myself.

MRS. BROWN AND MRS. GREEN.-G. L. BANKS

A very fair Christian is good Mrs. Brown,
And wise, too, as any in any wise town;
She worships her God without any display,

Not molesting her friend who lives over the way;
And whatever occurs it is easy to see

That her words and her conduct do always agree.

For this little maxim she shrewdly commends

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Good precept and practice should ever be friends!"

A very warm Christian is good Mrs. Green,

In her satins, and velvets, and rich armazine;
She is always at church when the service begins,
And prays quite aloud for the poor and their sins;
Then her speech is so fair, and her manner so bland,
They'd proselytise the most heathenish land;
And this one opinion she stoutly defends-
"That precept and practice should ever be friends!"
Mrs. Brown has a reticule, useful though small,
Which oft in the week she takes under her shawl,
Calling first on this person, and then on the other,
As if she were either a sister or mother;

And 't has oft been remarked, with good reason, no doubt,
That the reticule's lighter for having been out;

For this little maxim she shrewdly commends-
"Good precept and practice should ever be friends!”

Mrs. Green, now and then, for an hour, sits in state
With some more lady friends-rich, of course-to debate
How the poor shall be clothed, what taught, and what rules
It were best to enforce in the Charity Schools;
All of which having over and over been turned,
And nothing decided, the meeting's adjourned;
And this one opinion each lady defends-

"That precept and practice should ever be friends!"

In the street where resides our good friend Mrs. Brown
Is a school, though not known to a tithe of the town,
Which that lady supports from her own private purse;
(And 'tis thought by her neighbors she might do much worse;)
And if scholars, or parents, are ill or distressed,

The reticule's sure to be had in request;

For this little maxim she shrewdly commends

"Good precept and practice should ever be friends!"

Mrs. Green has a sympathy deep and refined,
It is not to parish or country confined;

If a party of ladies propose a bazaar

To enlighten the natives of rude Zanzibar,
She is truly delighted to sanction their aim,
By giving wise counsel, and lending her name;
For this one opinion she stoutly defends-

"That precept and practice should ever be friends!"

Mrs. Brown is a stranger to parties and sects,
The good of all classes she loves and respects;
Thinking little enough of profession or creed,
If the heart and the hand go not with it indeed;
While her prayers, and her purse, and her reticule, too,
For all sorts of Christians a kindness will do;
And this little maxim she shrewdly commends-
"Good precept and practice should ever be friends!"

There are few Mrs. Browns-not a few Mrs. Greens,
In their satins, and velvets, and rich armazines.

There are thousands who'll preach, lend their names, and give rules,

But how few are provided with small reticules!

With the world, Mrs. Green, as a saint, will go down—
We will stake our existence on good Mrs. Brown,

Who in word, and in deed, the trite maxim commends"Good precept and practice should ever be friends!"

CLEOPATRA'S BARGE.-SHAKSPEARE.

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold;

Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that

The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver; Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water, which they beat, to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggared all description; she did lie
In her pavilion, (cloth of gold and tissue,)
O'erpicturing that Venus, where we see

The fancy out-work nature; on either side her,
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid, did.

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,

So many mermaids, tended her 'i the eyes,
And made their bends adornings; at the helm
A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra, too,
And made a gap in nature.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.-GEN. LYTLE,

I am dying, Egypt, dying,
Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,
And the dark Plutonian shadows
Gather on the evening blast;
Let thine arms, O Queen, enfold me!
Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear;

Listen to the great heart-secrets,
Thou, and thou alone, must hear.

Though my scarred and veteran legions
Bear their eagles high no more,
And my wrecked and scattered galleys
Strew dark Actium's fatal shore;

Though no glittering guards surround me,
Prompt to do their master's will,
I must perish like a Roman,
Die the great Triumvir still.

Let not Cæsar's servile minions
Mock the lion thus laid low;

'Twas no foeman's arm that felled him-
'Twas his own that struck the blow,-
His, who, pillowed on thy bosom,
Turned aside from glory's ray-
His, who, drunk with thy caresses,
Madly threw a world away.
Should the base plebeian rabble
Dare assail my name at Rome,
Where my noble spouse, Octavia,
Weeps within her widowed home,
Seek her; say the Gods bear witness-
Altars, augurs, circling wings—.
That her blood, with mine commingled,
Yet shall mount the throne of kings.
And for thee, star-eyed Egyptian!
Glorious sorceress of the Nile,
Light the path to Stygian horrors
With the splendors of thy smile.
Give the Cæsar crowns and arches,
Let his brow the laurel twine;
I can scorn the Senate's triumphs,
Triumphing in love like thine.

I am dying, Egypt, dying;

Hark! the insulting foeman's cry.
They are coming! quick, my falchion!
Let me front them ere I die.

Ah! no more amid the battle

Shall my heart exulting swell-
Isis and Osiris guard thee!
Cleopatra, Rome, farewell!

LOCKED OUT.

Those who carry latch-keys can readily realize my sensations when I found I had left it in town. To wake the inmates was a matter of disturbing the whole neighborhood; I therefore determined (after waiting thirty minutes for a policeman,) to effect an entrance by the staircase window.

I must mention that my house is one of a short row, in which there live a butcher, baker, and chemist—each of whom keeps a dog or dogs, more or less vicious, according to the amiableness of its owner.

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Having determined to attempt the great window feat, I went round to the back of the house and looked over the paling. Scarcely had I raised my head, than Boo-woowoo!" went a dog with whom I had some slight acquaintance. I addressed it soothingly by its Christian name, "Gip."

The sound of my voice set the remainder of the dogs off, and in less than a minute there was a row only equalled by 'a pack in full cry."

This naturally woke some of the nobler animals; and one gentle female with a shrieky voice put her head out of the window and asked, in a hysterical tone, who was there.

The ever-ready answer, " Me," burst forth, regardless of grammar.

"Where are the police?"

"Precisely what I have been asking myself for the last thirty minutes," answered I.

At this juncture I attempted a laugh, and nearly overbal. anced myself, and in regaining my position, I kicked the palings on which I was seated, so vigorously, that off went the dogs louder than before, and several more windows went up.

At the chemist's appeared something that looked like Robinson Crusoe, ably supported by La Somnambula in a nightcap.

"What's the matter?" sensibly asked a third window. "Matter?" shrieked all the windows together; but their explanation was lost in the general howl of dogs.

"You shall hear of this in the morning," said one irrepressible female.

"It strikes me I am hearing of it, very much of it—in the morning; you mean later in the day. Call to lunch," said I "and let's have it out."

The windows went down with a bang, and I went off the palings with another, falling within a yard of a beautiful bull-mastiff, who showed me the perfect order in which he

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