hold my head above water, it is all I can. I have injured myself by purchasing; I have been too liberal of my money. 10. "Indeed, I fear my heir will find my affairs in a worse situation than they are reputed to be. Ah! he will have reason to wish I had loved money more and land less. Pray, my good neighbor, where should I have that quantity of money the world is so liberal to bestow on me? Where could I possibly, without I had stolen it, acquire such a treasure?" 11. "Why, truly," said Adams, "I have been always of your opinion; I have wondered, as well as yourself, with what confidence they could report such things of you, which have to me appeared as mere impossibilities; for you know, sir, and I have often heard you say it, that your wealth is of your own acquisition; and can it be credible that, in your short time, you should have amassed such a heap of treasure as these people will have it you are worth? Indeed, had you inherited an estate like Sir Thomas Booby, which had descended in your family through many generations, they might have had a color for their assertions." 12. "Why, what do they say I am worth?" cries Peter, with a malicious sneer. "Sir," answered Adams, "I have heard some aver you are not worth less than twenty thousand pounds." At which Peter frowned. "Nay, sir," said Adams, "you ask me only the opinion of others; for my own part, I have always denied it, nor did I ever believe you could possibly be worth half that sum." 13. "However, Mr. Adams," said he, squeezing him by the hand, "I would not sell them all I am worth for double that sum ; and as to what you believe, or they believe, I care not a fig. I am not poor, because you think me so, nor because you attempt to undervalue me in the country, I know the envy of mankind very well; but I thank Heaven I am above them. It is true, my wealth is of my own acquisition. I have not an estate like Sir Thomas Booby, that hath descended in my family through many generations; but I know heirs of such estates, who are forced to travel about the coun try, like some people in torn cassocks, and might be glad to accept of a pitiful curacy, for what I know; yes, sir, as shabby fellows as yourself, whom no man of my figure, without that vice of good nature about him, would suffer to ride in a chariot with him." 14. "Sir," said Adams, "I value not your chariot a rush; and if I had known you had intended to affront me, I would have walked to the world's end on foot, ere I would have accepted a place in it. However, sir, I will soon rid you of that inconvenience!" And so saying, he opened the chariot door, without calling to the coachman, and leaped out into the highway, forgetting to take his hat along with him; which, however, Mr. Pounce threw after him with great violence. THE BRAMBLE.--BISHOP. 1. WHILE wits through fiction's regions ramble, Come what may come,-I'll sing the bramble. 2. "How now!" methinks I hear you say: 3. But, soft! no more of this wild stuff! So help us, Rhyme, at future need, 4. All subjects of nice disquisition, 5. Both methods, for exactness' sake, 6. A bramble will not, like a rose, To prick your fingers, tempt your nose; 7. You shut your myrtles for a time up; No ditch too low, no hedge too high. 8. Some praise, and with reason too, 9. Spite of your skill, and care, and cost, 10. Some shrubs intestine hatred cherish, No stump so scrubby but he'll grace it; 11. The more resentment tugs and kicks, 12. Full in your view, and next your hand, 13. The bramble's shoot, though fortune lay Do anything, but yield or fly While brambles hints like these can start, THE OTHER FIG.-J. HOGG. 1. SOME years since, when I knew too little of the world, and thought too sensitively of its slightest opinion, I supped with an author of eminence as a wit and a poet, in the company of men of wit and genius; and much mad mirth and high-exciting talk we had,-too mad and too high for me, who could only laugh, or wonder in silence, at so many brilliant imaginations, and watch the striking out of their fiery sparks of wit, "So nimble and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one from whom they came, 2. It was after supper that a small basket of most mouthmelting figs was put on the friendly board, out of which, among other fingers, I was then moderate enough to deduct only one of its compressed lumps of deliciousness; but in a short time after this, music was proposed, and all the company left the supper-room for the music-parlor, with the exception, for two loitering moments, of the hospitable host and myself: it was in that short time that I fell from the heaven of my high exaltation, and proved myself "of the earth, earthy." 3. The basket of figs still stood before me: they were sweet as the lips of beauty, and tempting as the apples of Eden; and I was born of Eve, and inherited her " pugging tooth." It is no matter where temptation comes from, whether from Turkey or Paradise. Every man has his moment of weakness: I had two, and in those I fell. “I really must take the other fig," said I, taking it before the words were out. I had no sooner possessed myself of it than I blushed with the consciousness that I had committed some |