Some spotted with hay-cocks, some dark with

ploughed mould,

Some changed by the mower from green to pale

gold,

A scene of ripe sunshine the hedges betwixt,
With here and there farm-houses, tree-intermixed,
And an air in your face, ever fanning and sweet,
And the birds in your ears, and a turf for your

feet;

And then, after all, to encounter a throng of

Canal-men, and hod-men, unfit to make song of,
Midst ale-houses, puddles, and backs of street-roads,
And all sorts of rubbish, and crashing cart-loads,
And so on, eye-smarting, and ready to choke,
Till you end in hot narrowness, clatter, and smoke!

'Tis Swift after Spenser, or daylight with candles, sea-song succeeding a pastoral of Handel's,

A step unexpected, that jars one's inside,
The shout-raising fall at the end of a slide,
A yawn to a kiss, a flock followed by dust,
The hoop of a beauty seen after her bust,

A reckoning, a parting, a snake in the grass,

A time when a man says, "What! Come to this

pass!"

EXTRACT FROM ANOTHER TO THE SAME.

THE BERKELEIAN SYSTEM.

You know, my dear Tom, that the objects we see,
Are not, on the whole, what we take 'em to be;
And that colour, shape, surface, are modifications,
At least more or less, of our purblind sensations.
A set now of needles, like certain smooth souls,
Are as rough, on inspection, as old iron poles;
The sun, to us dim little critics, Lord love us!
Seems hardly worth measuring, he's so much above

us;

And mountains, like lovers, whatever their hue, When kept at a distance, are sure to look blue.

The thing is notorious. Nay, as for that matter, To talk about colour is only to chatter;

For like a complexion put on for the night,

'Tis all but a business of optics and light;

And a pair of red garters, although 'twould be wrong to

Are just, in the dark,—like the girl they belong to.

This truth, though it's stale to the present deep age,
Had once such effect on a good mitred sage,
That mistrusting those brilliant deceivers the eyes,
He resolved to put faith in no sort of disguise;
And (how he contrived, I don't know, with St. Paul)
Concluded there really was nothing at all.

Friends, pictures, books, gardens, like things in

romances,

To him were but fictions,-agreeable fancies;

And things not so pleasant, of course, such as aches, Wounds, fractures, and thumps, were but cruel

mistakes.

Did he cry, "A thought strikes me," you turn'd round to know

What thought 'twas he spoke of, a kick or bon-mot;
Had your brains been displaced by a bullet of lead,
'Twas a painful idea had got into your head;
And did any one speak of a wreck on the ocean,
He fell, as the crew had done, into a notion.