And then she'll flee like fire from flint,
She'll scarcely ward the second dint:

If any ask her of her thrift,

Foresooth her Nuinsell lives by thift."

POETICAL ASSOCIATIONS CONNECTED WITH

GARRETS.

We never think of a garret, but an infinitude of melancholy and lanky associations of skin and bone, poets and authors, come thronging on our imaginations. All ideas of the sins of the flesh evaporate on our entrance; for if all the flesh that has ever inhabited a garret were to be duly weighed in the balances, we are of opinion, that it would not amount to a ton. In walking up the steps that lead to this domiciliary appendage of genius, we are wholly overcome by the sanctity of the spot. We think of it as the resort of greatness, the cradle and grave of departed intellect, and pay homage to it in a sullen smile, or a flood of tears. A palace, a church, or a theatre, we can contrive to pass with some degree of indifference; but a garret, a place where Goldsmith flourished, and Chatterton died, we can never presume to enter without first paying a tribute of reverence to the pre

siding deity of the place. How venerable does it appear, at least if it is a genuine garret, with its angular projections, like the fractures in poor Goldsmith's face, its tattered and threadbare walls, like old Johnson's wig, and its numberless "loop-holes of retreat" for the north wind to peep through, and cool the poet's imagination. The very forlornness of its situation inspires elevated ideas in proportion to its altitude; it seems isolated from the world, and adapted solely to the intimate connexion that genius holds with heaven.

It was in a lonely garret, far removed from all connexion with mortality, that Otway conceived and planned his affecting tragedy of "Venice Preserved;" and it was in a garret that he ate the stolen roll, which ultimately terminated in his death. It was in a garret that poor Butler indited his inimitable "Hudibras," and convulsed the King and the Court with laughter, while he himself writhed in the pangs of starvation. Some one has thus aptly

alluded to the circumstance :

"When Butler, needy wretch! was yet alive,
No generous patron would a dinner give;

See him, resolv'd to clay and turn'd to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust.

The poet's fate is here in emblem shown :

He ask'd for bread, and he receiv'd a stone!"

A gentleman found Dryden in his old age exposed to the attacks of poverty, and pining in a garret, in an obscure corner of London. "You weep for my situation," exclaimed the venerable poet, on seeing him; "but, never mind, my young friend, the pang will be over soon." He died a few days afterwards. Poor Chatterton! "the sleepless boy, who perished in his pride," overcome by the pressure of po verty, and stung to the quick by the heartless neglect of a bigoted aristocrat, commenced his immortality in a garret in Shoreditch. For two days previous to his death, he had eaten nothing. His landlady, pitying his desolate condition, invited him to sup with her he spurned the invitation with contempt, and put an end to his existence by poison. Crowds inflicted elegies to his memory, the length and breadth of which filled volumes, while the subject of these doleful tributes lies buried in a workhouse burying ground in Shoe-lane, unnoticed by epitaph or eulogy. When a nobleman happened, by

chance, to call upon Johnson, he found this great author in a state of the most desponding hopelessness. A thing which an antiquarian might, perhaps, discover to have once been a table, was stationed in the middle of the garret; a few unfinished papers and manuscripts were scattered about the uncarpeted floor in every direction, and the unfortunate owner of these curiosities had neither pens, ink, paper, nor credit, to continue his lucubrations. It was about this time, when threatened to be turned out of his literary pigstye, that he applied to Richardson, the celebrated novelist, for assistance, who instantly sent him five pounds, a sum which relieved him from misery and a dungeon.

Poor Goldsmith was once seated in his garret, where the "Deserted Village" was written, in familiar conversation with a friend, when his pride was considerably annoyed by the abrupt entrance of the little girl of the house, with Pray, Mr. Goldsmith, can you lend Mrs.

a chamber-pot full of coals?" The mortified poet was obliged to return an answer in the negative, and endure the friendly, but sarcastic, condolence of his companion. In a garret,

either in the Old Bailey, or in Green-arbour Court, the exquisite "Citizen of the World,' and equally celebrated "Vicar of Wakefield," were written. Of the last-mentioned work, the following ludicrous anecdote is not, we believe, generally known:

While Goldsmith was completing the closing pages of his novel, he was roused from his occupation by the unexpected appearance of his landlady, to whom he was considerably in arrears, with a huge bill for the last few weeks' lodgings. The poet was thunderstruck with surprise and consternation: he was unable to answer her demands, either then, or in future. At length, the lady relieved the nature of his embarrassment, by offering to remit the liquidation of the debt, provided he would accept her as his true and. lawful spouse. His friend, Dr. Johnson, chanced, by great good luck, to come in at the time; and, by advancing him a sufficient sum to defray the expenses of his establishment, consisting only of himself and a dirty shirt, relieved him from his matrimonial shackles.

A literary friend once called to pay Fielding a visit, and found him in a miserable garret,