And fears lest even the rustling leaves betray
His footfall; nearer yet, and yet more near
He stalks-Ah, who shall save the heedless group?
The speckled partridges that in the sun,

On yonder hillock green, across the stream,
Bask unalarm'd beneath the hawthorn bush,
Whose aged boughs the crawling blackberry
Entwines.

The country Kate, with shining morning cheek,
(Who in the tumbril with her market gear
Sits seated high,) seems to expect the flash
Exploding

Not so the clown, who, heedless whether life

Or death betide, across the splashing ford

Drives slow the beasts plod on, foot follows foot,

Aged and grave, with half-erected ears,

As now his whip above their matted manes

Hangs trem'lous, while the dark and shallow stream
Flashes beneath their fetlock; he, astride

On harness saddle, not a sidelong look

Deigns at the breathing landscape, or the maid
Smiling behind; the cold and lifeless calf

Her sole companion

But lift the eye,

And hail th' abode of rural ease. The man
Walks forth from yonder antique hall, that looks
The mistress of the scene: its turrets gleam
Amid the trees, and cheerful smoke is seen-

On the balustrade

Of the old bridge, that o'er the moat is thrown,

The fisher with his angle leans intent,

And turns from the bright pomp of spreading plains,

To watch the nimble fry, that, glancing oft,

Beneath the grey arch shoot.

Lo! where the morning light, through the dark wood, Upon the window pane is flung like fire.

Hail, "Life and Hope!" and thou, great work of art, That, 'mid this populous and busy swarm

Of man, dost smile serene, as with the hues

Of fairest, grandest nature, mayst thou speak

Not vainly of th' endearments and best joys

That nature yields. The manliest head, that swells
With honest English feelings,

Charm'd for a moment by this mantling view,

Its anxious tumults shall suspend.

I FIND Orrery's letters on Swift very amusing. He is an earlier Boswell, without his dramatic power. The apprenticeship of both was severe. He assured Warburton that his pursuit of the Dean had been attended by numberless mortifications. However, he had his reward. The entire impression of his letters was sold in a single day; and Warburton mentions, in his correspondence with Hurd, that the publisher had disposed of twelve thousand copies. It would be very amusing to run over the animadversions on these letters, written in the margin of the copy in Hartlebury Library. The continuation of Rousseau's Memoirs obtained a welcome of equal fervour in Paris, and faded from the public mind with the same rapidity. "In eight days," said La Harpe, "all the world had read them, and in eight days all the world had forgotten them." Swift's Adventures of Gulliver were out of print in a week.

Occasionally, but after long intervals of neglect, the tide of enthusiasm has hurried productions of learning and research into notice. The first volume of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was not to be obtained in a few days after its appearance; the succeeding impressions scattered it over "almost every toilet." Yet, to mark the uncertainty of popular

OLD STORIES WITH NEW FACES.

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applause, Hume's History of England, which he commenced with the most sanguine expectations, lay unnoticed on the shelf of the bookseller. In twelve months, Millar sold only forty-five copies. Atterbury expressed his "fixed opinion" that the reputation of all books, perfectly well written, proceeds originally from the few. The exquisite tragedy of Athalie-the pride of the French drama-which awoke the admiration of Boileau and the tears of Voltaire,-was received with ridicule and contempt. The perusal of a given number of lines from it was one of the punishments inflicted upon fashionable offenders, in the distinguished circles of Paris. The most excellent comedy of Ben Jonson met with a fate scarcely less discouraging.

Johnson entertained a more favourable opinion of Orrery's conduct than Warburton has expressed. When he was asked, whether he did not regard it as unjust to expose the failings of one, with whom we may have lived in habits of intimacy, his reply was, "Why, no, Sir; after the man is dead; for then it is done historically." Swift spoke kindly of Orrery; he styles him, in a letter to Pope, a most worthy gentleman.

AUGUST 8TH.

MANY literary stories seem to be shadows, brighter or fainter, of others told before. I came upon an example this morning. Mr. Nichols, the intimate companion and correspondent of Gray, was not more than nineteen years old, when a friend procured for him an introduction to the poet. Gray, pleased with his manner and conversation, invited him to his rooms, and cultivated his acquaintance. There is something graphic in the incident, as related by Mathias. The conversation having taken a classical