NOTE. Note 1. Page 28, line 10. He gave him such a punch upon the head. It is « Gli dette in sulla testa un gran punzone.» strange that Pulci should have literally anticipated the technical terms of my old friend and master, Jackson, and the art which he has carried to its highest pitch. A punch on the head,» or « a punch in the head,» « un punzone in sulla testa,» is the exact and frequent phrase of our best pugilists, who little dream that they are talking the purest Tuscan. WALTZ, AN APOSTROPHIC HYMN. Qualis in Eurotæ ripis, aut per juga Cynthi VIRGIL. Such on Eurotas' banks, or Cynthia's height, Diana seems; and so she charms the sight, When in the dance the graceful goddess leads The quire of nymphs, and overtops their heads. DRYDEN'S VIRGIL, TO THE PUBLISHER. SIR, I AM a country gentleman of a midland county. I might have been a parliament-man for a certain borough, having had the offer of as many votes as General T. at the general election in 1812.1 But I vas all for domestic happiness; as fifteen years ago, on a visit to London, I married a middle-aged maid of honour. We lived happily at Hornem Hall till last season, when my wife and I were invited by the Countess of Waltzaway (a distant relation of my spouse) to pass the winter in town. Thinking no harm, and our girls being come to a marriageable (or as they call it, marketable) age, and having besides a chancery suit inveterately entailed upon the family estate, we came up in our old chariot, of which, by the bye, my wife grew so much ashamed in less than a week, that I was obliged to buy a second-hand barouche, of which I might mount the box, Mrs H. says, if I could drive, but never see the inside-that place being reserved for the honourable Augustus Tiptoe, her partnergeneral and opera-knight. Hearing great praises of Mrs H.'s dancing (she was famous for birth-night m nuets in the latter end of the last century), I unboote and went to a ball at the countess's, expecting to st a country dance, or, at most, cotillions, reels, and the old paces to the newest tunes. But, judge of n surprize, on arriving, to see poor dear Mrs Horne with her arms half round the loins of a huge huss looking gentleman I never set eyes on before; and h to say truth, rather more than half round her wa turning round, and round, and round, to a d――d se saw up and down sort of tune, that reminded me the << black joke» only more « affettuoso,» till it made me quite giddy with wondering they were not so. and bye they stopped a bit, and I thought they woul "sit or fall down:-but, no; with Mrs. H.'s hand on his shoulder, «quam familiariter,» (as Terence said whet I was at school), they walked about a minute, and then at it again, like two cock-chafers spitted on the same bodkin. I asked what all this meant, when, with a loud laugh, a child no older than our Wilhelmina fa name I never heard but in the Vicar of Wakefield though her mother would call her after the Princes of Swappenbach), said, «Lord, Mr Hornem, can't you see they are valtzing,» or waltzing (I forget which); ar i then up she got, and her mother and sister, and away they went, and round-abouted it till supper-time. Now that I know what it is, I like it of all things, and so does Mrs H. (though I have broken my shins, and four times overturned Mrs Hornem's maid in practising the preliminary steps in a morning.) Indeed, so much do I like it, that having a turn for rhyme, tastily displayed |