But what with my Nivernois hat can compare,
Bag-wig and laced ruffles and black solitaire ?
And what can a man of true fashion denote
Like a yard of good ribbon tied under his throat ?
My buckles and box are in exquisite taste;
The one is of paper, the other of paste ;
And my stockings of silk are just come from the hosier,
For to-night I'm to dance with the charming Miss Toser.

He goes to the ball. After two or three pages of rhapsodies :

But hark! now they strike the melodious string,
The vaulted roof echoes, the mansions all ring;
At the sound of the hautboy, the bass and the fiddle,
Sir Boreas Blubber steps forth in the middle,
Like a hollyhock, noble majestic and tall,
Sir Boreas Blubber first opens the ball.
Sir Boreas, great in the minuet known,
Since the day that for dancing his talents were shown
Where the science is practised by gentlemen grown.
How he puts on his hat with a smile on his face
And delivers his hand with an exquisite grace !
How gently he offers Miss Carrot before us
Miss Carrot Fitz-oozer a niece of Lord Porus !
How nimbly he paces, how active and light!
One never can judge of a man at first sight;
But as near as I guess from the size of his calf
He may weigh about twenty-three stone and a half.
Now why should I mention a hundred or more
Who went the same circle as others before
To a tune that they played us a hundred times o'er ?

I must find room for some scraps of a public breakfast. Simkin invokes the desire of popularity : 'Twas you

Lord Ragamuffin come here, Who they say has been lately created a peer, And to-day with extreme complaisance and respect asked All the people at Bath to a general breakfast.

made my

You've heard of my Lady Bunbutter, no doubt,
How she loves an assembly fandango or rout;
No lady in London is half so expert
At a snug private party her friends to divert;
But they say that of late she's grown sick of the town
And often to Bath condescends to come down:
Her ladyship’s favourite house is “The Bear,"
Her chariot and servants and horses are there.

Now my

lord had the honour of coming down post To pay

his respects to so famous a toast; In hopes he her ladyship's favour might win, By playing the part of a host at an inn. He said it would greatly our pleasure promote If we all for Spring Gardens set out in a boat; Though I never as yet could his reason explain Why we all sallied forth in the wind and the rain. For sure such confusion was never yet known, Here a cap and a hat, there a cardinal blown; While his lordship embroidered and powdered all o’er Was bowing and handing the ladies ashore. How the misses did huddle and scuddle and run, One would think to be wet must be very good fun; For by waggling their gown-tails they seemed to take pains To moisten their pinions like ducks when it rains ;

And 'twas pretty to see, how like birds of a feather
The people of quality all flocked together ;
All pressing, addressing, caressing, and fond,
Just as so many ganders and geese in a pond.
You've read all their names in the news I

suppose, But for fear you have not take the list as it goes :

There was Lady Greasewrister,
And Madam Van Twister,
Her Ladyship's sister;
Lord Cram and Lord Vulter,
Sir Brandish O'Culter,
With Marshal Carouser,

And old Lady Drouser,
And the great Hanoverian Baron Pansmouser,
Besides many others who all in the rain went
On purpose to honour this grand entertainment.
The company made a most brilliant appearance,
And ate bread and butter with great perseverance ;
All the chocolate, too, that my lord set before 'em
The ladies dispatched with the utmost decorum ;
And had I a voice that was stronger than steel,
With twice fifty tongues to express what I feel,
And as many good mouths, yet I never could utter
All the speeches my lord made to Lady Bunbutter!

Now why should the Muse, my dear mother, relate
The misfortunes that fall to the lot of the great ?
As homeward we came'tis with sorrow you'll hear
What a dreadful disaster attended the

peer :
In landing old Lady Bumfidget and daughter
This obsequious lord tumbled into the water;
But a nymph of the flood brought him safe to the boat
And I left all the ladies a cleaning his coat.

A worse disaster than that which befel Lord Ragamuffin is in store for our good-humoured letter-writer. His friend, Captain Cormorant, who by the way turns out to be no captain at all, and who had undertaken, amongst other fashionable accomplishments, to initiate him in the mysteries of lansquenet, cheats him out of seven hundred pounds ; so that Miss Jenny loses her lover and her cousin his money at one stroke. Prudence and Tabitha also come in for their share of misadventures ; and the whole party return, crestfallen and discomfited, to the good old Lady Blunderhead and their Yorkshire Manor House.

XI.

AMERICAN POETS.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER_FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.

I DID a great injustice the other day when I said that the Americans had at last a great poet. I should have remembered that poets, like sorrows :

“Come not single spies But in battalions."

There is commonly a flight of those singingbirds, as we had ourselves at the beginning of the present century; and besides Professor Longfellow, Bryant, Willis, Lowell and Poe do the highest honour to America.

The person, however, whom I should have most injured myself in forgetting, for my injustice could not damage a reputation such as his, was John G.