Oh, Dick! Oh, Dick! it was not so
Some half a dozen years ago!
Melpomene was no sneaker,

When, under Reverend Mister Poole,
Each little boy at Enfield School
Became an Enfield's speaker!

No cruel master-tailor's cane

Then thwarted the theatric vein ;
The tragic soil had tillage.
O dear dramatic days gone by!
You, Dick, were Richard then-and I
Play'd Hamlet to the village,

Or, as Macbeth, the dagger clutch'd,
Till all the servant-maids were touch'd-
Macbeth, I think, my pet is;

Lord, how we spouted Shakespeare's works—
Dick, we had twenty little Burkes,
And fifty Master Betties!

And Zangra too,-but I shall weep,
If longer on this theme I keep,

And let remembrance loose, Dick ;
Now forced to act-it's very hard-
"Measure for Measure" with a yard-
You Richard, with a goose, Dick!

Zounds! Dick, it's very odd our dads
Should send us there when we were lads
To learn to talk like Tullies;
And now, if one should just break out,
Perchance, into a little spout,

A stick about the skull is.

Why should stage-learning form a part
Of schooling for the tailor's art?
Alas! dramatic notes, Dick,

So well record the sad mistake

Of him who tried at once to make

Both Romeo and Coates, Dick!

TO A CHILD EMBRACING HIS MOTHER,

Love thy mother, little one!
Kiss and clasp her neck again,—
Hereafter she may have a son

Will kiss and clasp her neck in vain,

Love thy mother, little one!

Gaze upon her living eyes,

And mirror back her love for thee,

Hereafter thou mayst shudder sighs
To meet them when they cannot see.
Gaze upon her living eyes!

Press her lips the while they glow
With love that they have often told,—
Hereafter thou mayst press in woe,

And kiss them till thine own are cold.
Press her lips the while they glow!

Oh, revere her raven hair!
Although it be not silver-grey;

Too early Death, led on by Care,
May snatch save one dear lock away.

Oh! revere her raven hair!

Pray for her at eve and morn,

That Heaven may long the stroke defer,—
For thou mayst live the hour forlorn

When thou wilt ask to die with her.
Pray for her at eve and morn!

FRAGMENT.

I HAD a dream-the summer beam
Play'd on the wings of merry hours-
(Made long long smiles of merry hours);
But Life 'gan throw a warp of woe,
Across its tapestry of flowers,

Fear's darker shade took form and made

Like shadows darkling in light most sparkling.

The fragrant tombs amid the blooms
Of April in a garden ground

Show'd many a name that none could claim
Half-read between the roses round.
Unbanish'd clouds like coffin-shrouds
Neighbour'd the sun amid the blue,
And tearful streams mix'd with his beams,
Yet made no promise as they flew.

Young Hope indeed began to read
The prophecies with cheerful look,
But dark Despair look'd over there,

And wept black blots upon her book.
And scarce the form all bright and warm
Of Joy was woven into birth

When, like her shade, black Grief was laid Prone at her feet along the earth.

Then do not chide-the sunny side
Of monuments for Joy is made,
But Sorrow still must weep her fill
On those that lie beneath the shade.

REVIEW.

OPEN SESAME; OR, THE WAY TO GET MONEY.

WHO WAS ONCE POOR. London : 1832.

BY A RICH MAN
Griffiths.

SHADE of Ali Baba! what a title for a book!

At the first

announcement we posted up from Wanstead to Wellingtonstreet, and were fortunate enough to procure a copy before the shop-door of Thomas Griffiths was wedged up by a mob of poor gentlemen who long to be rich. We are constitutionally sanguine. A little more, and we should have hurried. off to Smithfield for asses to load with our treasures, and to Aldersgate for a standard bushel to measure the sovereigns; but a prudent Morgiana of a she-friend advised us beforehand to look well into the pages; and sure enough, as in the robber's oil jars, we found a Master Catchpenny at the bottom of the whole.

According to the author, there are "four hundred and fifty-three ways of making money in this metropolis on a large scale." Of all these ways he recommends you to pick one as follows:

"Have you anything in your pockets? Nothing. So much the better. Get the pickaxe of resolution ready, shoulder arms, and set-to like, not a Trojan, but a straightforward City broker."-p. 7.

We recollect beginning life in the same line, and it brought us almost to shouldering a literal pickaxe. Day after day we lingered at Batson's and haunted the Russia walk, with no tallow to dispose of but our own inch of candle-no bristles except those on our chin-no hemp to purchase, but a little on our own desperate account. On such noncommissioned mercantile officers the oracle is cruelly quizzical.