BEDMINSTER, this is subject enough for an Eclogue. The bower, the porch, the yews by the laundry, the yard horse-chesnuts, the mortality, as my grandmother called it: the changes now, colloquially told; and then to catch the sound of Ashton-bells, and speak of the family buryingplace. The best kitchen, the black boarded parlour, the great picture-bible. What a treat! And then the old bird and beast book. I wish I had that book! an old book of natural history has such fine lies. I just remember the whale in it.

SOPHONISBA drinking the poison. A Monodrama.

INSCRIPTION at Penshurst, by the oak planted at Sir Philip Sidney's birth. So all things perish but the memory of the great.1

A FEW lines with this point,-think of the future, and you will never have cause to regret the past.

THE holly-tree, an emblem, and somewhat in Quarles's way. Kingdoms should be like it, fenced well, but only strict there; men gentler at home than anywhere else. Again, we should lose our asperities as we grow old; again, we should be serious in youth, that we may be cheerful in age, and all like the holly tree.

WINTER,3 they paint thee like a bluelipped, blue-nosed, icicle-bearded old man, like a walking snow-ball; but they should paint thee a fine ruddy faced old boy, sitting by the Christmas fire.

A TRAVELLING thought. The present scenery beautiful; but in remembrance the very recollection of fatigue will increase its interest.

'See Inscription, xvi. "For a Tablet at Penshurst," Poems, p. 173.

See "The Holly Tree," Poems, p. 129. • Worked up in Sonnet xv. Poems, p. 109. J. W. W.

THERE is a marine on board the Royal George who persuaded his father to murder his mother, and then turned king's evidence against him, and had him hung. This will make a very diabolical ballad. This man is benighted, and falls in with a traveller in the dark. The voice strikes him as familiar; and when the moon appears he sees the very face of his father, for it is a devil in the corpse. He leads him to the wheel where his father had suffered, and fixes him there.

SONNET. A ship returning to port.

NoT into the grave, O my soul!5 not into the grave shouldst thou descend to contemplate thy friend. Raise thyself to that better world, thy birthright, and commune with him there.

A CHARACTER has occurred to me, admirably fine in the grotesque magic. A little man gifted with the power of extending all his limbs to any length; who can stretch his neck and look in at the window of the highest tower; and when walking under a precipice, can put up his hand into the eagle's nest. Is he on the bank of a river? he lengthens his legs, and steps

across.

The story should conclude with his dilating his mouth, and swallowing somebody.

THERE is a lie in the life of St. Isidore which may perhaps make a ballad. A man who could find no surety for his rent appealed to the saint, pledging his word to the landlord before his tomb, and praying if he failed that Isidore might punish him. The fellow however could not pay it, and so run away one night. His road lay by the church of St. Andrew, wherein Isidore was buried, and he was miraculously kept

• Worked up in Sonnet xix. Poems, p. 109. See the exquisite lines on his early friend, Edmund Seward, Poems, p. 131.

See the Ballad," Old Christaval's Advice,” &c. Poems, p. 433.

J. W. W.

#

all night running round and round the church, while he thought he was getting on his way. In the morning the landlord found him; he repented, prayed for forgiveness, worked harder, and paid the debt.

DONA ANA MARIA REMESAL promised, on the wedding day of her sister Mariana, to give a sum of money towards the canonization of St. Isidore. She either forgot her vow or neglected it. Maria de la Cabera, the wife of Isadore, appeared to her with an Alguazil and a black dog, as she lay in her bed, and arrested her for this debt. They let her go, however, on her sincere promise of speedy payment. This will make a tolerable ballad. Let her be called from the company on the wedding evening, and led to the tomb of St. Isidore, to pass the night. It should be the bridegroom who makes the vow.

ONE of my war poems may be made upon that description of Jemappe given me by Carlisle, expressing joy for the event, with an abhorrence of the war principle.

ANOTHER must be upon this story. At the evacuation of Toulon, a husband, his wife, and infant were attempting to escape in the last boat. The husband had got in, when they pushed off. The wife flung her child to him. The child fell short, and sunk, and the mother leapt after. Tom' told me this on the authority of an eye-witness.

THE treatment of Colonel Despard,2 described as in a dramatic fragment. Related abroad as a proof of foreign tyranny to an Englishman.

INSCRIPTION in a forest,3 near no path; who reads it has most like been led by the love of nature, and he may enjoy the beauties of

His brother, Captain Thomas Southey,often mentioned.

2 See ESPRIELLA's Letters, vol. iii. p. 95, third edit.

See Inscriptions, p. 172. J. W. W.

scenery more by knowing another has felt them. If it has pleased thee to be told of this, cleanse the moss and weeds from the tablet!

ECLOGUE. The witch. A man nailing a horse-shoe at his door. Tales of the old woman, and superstitions.

ECLOGUE. A winter evening. Children and their grandmother. They beg for a story. A ghost story. My mother's account of Moll" Bees's murder, and the remorse of the murderer, that led him to accuse himself. A gibbet and a ghost are easily added.

HISTORY," the painful feelings it excites. The historic Muse appears. She speaks of Greece, of Rome, Holland, Padilla, and the many martyrs of freedom; then personally addresses the poet.

ORMIA, a Monodrama, where did the Portugueze writer find the story? She enters her husband's tent at midnight, and his surprise must be expressed by her.

THE death of Malcolm's murderers. A ballad.

WHAT can be made of the story of St. Romuald ? Should it be a ballad showing how a man might be too good?

MRS. WILSON's story of the dog. A gentleman sat up in a haunted house at Dublin with a great dog. The dog growled at first, his anger increased, at last he leaped at a particular part of the wall, then round and round the room ran raging, and leapt again at the same place, then pawed at the door furiously. The man let him out, he rushed

See English Eclogues, Poems, p. 154.

Ibid. "The Grandmother's Tale," p. 150.
See Poems, p. 140, "History."

7 See Ballad, "St. Romuald," Poems, p. 436. She was the old occupant of Greta Hall, and the kind friend of all the children. J. W. W.

up stairs, and the man found him in the garret over the room below, leaping at the same part of the wall. He himself neither saw nor heard anything, but declared he would not for worlds undergo another night of such feelings. The dog lay gasping with exhaustion, and foaming so that his master was once or twice tempted to shoot him in compassion. This will be better told dramatically than as a ballad.

PERHAPS a young man departing from home to go for the first time to London, might furnish stuff for an eclogue.

THE nasty custom of interment makes the idea of a dead friend more unpleasant. We think of the grave, corruption, and worms. Burning would be better.

Dost thou wish, when reading of foreign lands, to see their beauties? It is a melancholy thing to be among strangers! 1

EPITAPH for Gerald. What the verdict records him, what he thought himself. Posterity and God will judge him.

INFANTS, their lot after death? Do their spirits animate other bodies? or are they transplanted to a better world? Were the material system true, it would, I think, exclude them from a future life; for what consciousness of identity could be restored to them? Upon the soul system, or indeed any system, they must grow up somewhere, else would they be like the beasts that perish.

Fox! well may he believe that the affairs of man are ruled by fatality, else would not the arts of one so inferior have ruined thy country, thou the while living and warning. Jeremiah. The Catos, &c.