business of the night, when we were ushered into their place of meeting, which was a spacious and elegantlyfurnished room, no doubt, set apart for the purpose. Lady Caroline Lambert, a showy, rather than a beautiful woman, sat at the upper end of a large table, covered with books, papers, and writing materials; her friends, both male and female, had taken their seats on either side; and at the lower end, opposite her lady ship, was a young clergyman, probably not yet provided with a church, but who, in the well-grounded hope of securing her ladyship's patronage, was happy to hold, in the mean time, the highly-honourable situation of Secretary to the literary institution which she had succeeded in establishing at Edgefield. After the ceremony of my introduction to the fair President had been duly performed, the minutes of the previous meeting were read, and, as near as I can recollect, they were of the following import: "Lambert Castle, Edgefield, 20th Sept. 1823. "At the fifteenth meeting of the 'Literary and Poetical Association' of this place, Lady Caroline Lambert in the chair, her ladyship was graciously pleased to favour the Society with the first chapter of her new novel, which she hopes to have ready for publication by the end of the year. Her ladyship also read to the Society a few deeply pathetic and beautiful stanzas upon the death of a favourite lamb, which Sir William, being unfortunately somewhat shortsighted, had shot, mistaking it for one of his own deer. Miss Jemima Digges then produced her long-promised Sonnet, being an address to the Evening Star. Mr Theodore Peacock repeated his two parodies of Moore's celebrated songs, The Last Rose of Summer,' and The Meeting of the Waters.' Miss Ellen Sommers read an interesting_translation of several scenes from Jouy's new tragedy, entitled Sylla.' The Hon. Mr Cecil Rae communicated his recent discovery in the art of penmanship, by which all authors will be enabled to write with both hands at once. At half past eleven the Society adjourned." Upon these minutes no remarks were made, and Lady Caroline therefore intimated her intention to proceed with the second chapter of her novel. It was the dullest thing I had ever heard; an attempt, namely, to describe the company assembled at a new inn in the immediate neighbourhood of a lately-discovered mineral well. There was a blustering Highland Chieftain, a coarse English fox-hunter, a cunning vulgar attorney, a very common-place doctor, half a dozen young men of "decided genius," and a few other male ciphers. Then, among the women, her heroine, as it seemed, was a half-crazed, unnatural sort of character, ycleped, in the true spirit of a modern romance, Clara Mowbray; the minor stars were, a worn-out coquette,—a discontented wife, ready to run away with the first man who offered,-a low-bred Scotchwoman, introduced, for the first time, into any thing like good society, and some half score of silly, giggling girls, stantes sine nomine umbrae. Her auditors seemed delighted; but I, though no novelreader, recollected something of Smollet and Fielding-names which one almost never hears of now, and could not bring myself to believe, that even the slightest approximation had been made to them in the present production. Yet there was evidently an attempt to sketch character strongly and decidedly, as they had done-"Heu! quanto intervallo.” Lady Caroline's task being ended, much to her own and the company's satisfaction, Miss Digges, the successful debutante of the previous evening, was called upon for any "sweet effusion" which she had been so kind as bring with her. Of course, all eyes were instantly turned upon the amiable poetess. She was a sallow, sentimental-looking girl, with red hair, and a mouth which, when she ventured to smile, stretched itself out to a most portentous longitude. Upon the present occasion, casting a pair of pale blue eyes up to the ceiling, with a look intended to represent the most seraphic sweetness, she entreated to be passed over for this night; but Lady Caroline would take no refusal, and Miss Digges, not daring to rebel any longer, only observed, by way of preface-" You know I make Wordsworth my mo del," and then recited, with much pathos, the following Sonnet-a copy of which, as well as of the other pieces that follow, my friend Dickson afterwards procured for me: Sonnet, By a Lady of Sensibility. "I saw a beggar knock at Mary's door, As old a man as ever I had seen; I daresay he was eighty-five, or more, And pale, and weak, and very, very lean; And, as he walk'd, his poor old limbs seem'd sore, And through his tatter'd clothes the wild winds blew ; His pantaloons were made of many a score Of different patches-every shape and hue; The fragment of a coat was on his back, And on his head the remnant of a hat; His hair was grey, though it had once been black, His back was round, though it had once been flat: Mary soon saw him, and the generous soul Gave him a penny to procure a roll." Long and loud was the applause with which this production was received, and it unfortunately produced the same effect on the sweet poetess which applause, in general, is too apt to do. It silenced, at once, any faint whisperings of modesty, and brought into full play all the conceit of a little mind, puffed up, almost to bursting, with the consciousness of its own powers. Spontaneously, therefore, and with a smile of condescension, she announced to us her intention of favouring us with something more. "I was at Ramsgate," said she, "in the autumn of last year, and the shocking barbarities which I saw daily committed on the shore, called from me, in a fit of indignant inspiration, the following Sonnet. Poor little innocent! I grieve to see Thy mother plunge thee in the deep, deep ocean, Whose waves, although they hardly reach her knee, Sweep o'er thy shoulders in severe commotion. Indeed it is a fearful thing to me, To view thee sprawl, and scratch, and tear, and kick; › And hear thee, in thy depth of misery, Vent all thy soul in one unbroken shriek. Sweet artless victim! if thou wert my child, (Which thou art not, and ne'er, alas! can be,) I'd snatch thee from those billows salt and wild, And, putting on thy clothes, would set thee free ; But, as it is, must in silence gaze, Omniscient Heaven! how strange are all thy ways!" "With your ladyship's permission, I shall now read my Sonnet," cried a voice from the lower end of the table, which proceeded from a little man, with bright grey eyes, a brown scratch wig, and a cork-leg. "We shall be delighted to hear it, Mr Winterdykes," answered her ladyship. All eyes sparkled, for Mr Winterdykes was looked on as the Peter Pindar of the Society, and though nobody liked to be made the subject of his satire, yet every one was pleased when he seemed disposed to vent it on another. Assuming the solemn air of mock-heroic dignity, he rose from the table, walked into the middle of the room, planted his cork-leg firmly behind, moved his wig somewhat awry, rolled his little twinkling eye "in a fine phrenzy," and casting up his hands to heaven, remarked, before commencing, in a sort of parenthesis, but so gravely, that it was impossible to say whether he was in joke or in earnest, "You know I make Milton my model; and happening, last week, as I returned home a little tipsy from a convivial party, to have my attention arrested by the Moon, these lines flowed from my mouth in a fit of irrepressible inspiration: Sonnet to the Moon. Cream-coloured Moon! you now are in the sky Smiling, aye laughing, till you hold your sides; 66 You don your seven-leagued boots," and then you fly Through the blue ether with a giant's strides ; You're like a jaunting-car, or pleasure Some of the younger members stuffed their handkerchiefs into their mouths, and others laughed outright; but Mr Winterdykes walked back to his seat with the same composure that he had left it. Mr Theodore Peacock was next applied to; rather a handsome young man, with a Roman nose, and a Grecian brow, but withal, somewhat too fashionably dressed to have much genius. He who allows his mustachios to grow, who wears a diamond ring on his little finger, and buries his ears within the collar of his shirt, can never write good poetry; he will never produce any thing superior to the following translation of Mr Theodore Peacock, who, turning with an air of fashionable badinage to Miss Ellen Sommers, beside whom he sat, recited these lines: Cantata, From the Italian of Zappi. As o'er the mountain's brow she roves, Miss Sommers, whose face was, in fact, remarkably pale, seemed not a little disconcerted by the somewhat indelicate manner which she was thus made the object of general attention. With the hope of concealing her confusion, as soon as her admirer had finished, she hastened to comply with Lady Caroline's request, that she would read or recite the poem which she had selected for this evening from her numerous stock. There was something peculiarly interesting in this young lady's countenance. Her eye was of a deep melancholy blue, and her whole appearance presented me with a personification of female genius, more in unison with the beau-ideal of my fancy, than I ever expected to have seen realized. I listened, therefore, with much attention, to the following verses, or, as` the Italians would call them, quadernarii. The Enfant's Bream. "I look'd upon a sleeping infant's face, And saw a smile come o'er it, brightly beaming Like some rich tint of morning loveliness; Tell me of what was that young cherub dreaming? What heav'nly sounds were in its infant ears ? What heav'nly sight before its infant eyes? Perhaps the music of the rolling spheres, Perhaps the glories of the starry skies. Perhaps it wander'd among worlds of light, A viewless spirit of the sunny air; Perhaps it gaz'd on that eternal site Where sinless angels heav'nly pleasures share. Whate'er they were, thy dreams were not of earth, For not o'er thee, sweet babe! had yet been thrown The taint that poisons every mortal birth, And marks the child of man, Misfor tune! for thy own." The next candidate for public applause was a gentleman in black, at least six feet high, and though probably on the borders of fifty, yet as slender as a stripling of eighteen. He was certainly one of the most awkward beings I had ever seen, yet there was something like humour in his face. I was not surprised to hear him commence with hoping that the ladies would recollect he was an old bachelor, and, besides, that he was answerable only for the words, not for the ideas, of the poem he was about to recite, it being a translation, and was entitled Cupid's Love. Imitated from the Italian of Rossi. "One day, as all ancient historians agree, Master Cupid determin'd to hold a levee ; So he call'd for his porter, to stand at his gate, To admit all his guests in due order and state. His porter soon came, and his name is Caprice, Conceit is his daughter, and Prudery his niece; He stood at the gate in his high-powder'd wig, And, like all other porters, he look'd mighty big: And, proud of his pow'r, as our history pretends, He only admitted particular friends. First, Youth was receiv'd with a smile and a bow, A favourite of Cupid's, as all men allow; Then Beauty was welcom'd with much complaisance, For the Graces were with her each charm to enhance ; Then, next, were admitted both Laughter and Sport, But the time of their stay, it is said, was but short; They are not at their ease when they Mistress Folly was one, and the other For this was a trio that Cupid ador'd; with face 'Old Wisdom's below, shall I show him up here ?' 'Poor square-toes!' cried Cupid, suppressing a smile; And has he been waiting, kind soul, all this while? Pray tell the old boy I am busy to-day, He may call the next time that he passes this way."" Every body declared that this was positively libellous, and that, as none but an old bachelor would have written it, no one but an old bachelor would ever have thought of translating it. "Here, I am sure, is a gentleman," said Lady Caroline, turning to me with one of her sweetest smiles, "who entertains less satirical notions of the tender passion, whether he be a bachelor or not.' "Your swered I, with a bow." I am a baladyship does me only justice,” anchelor, and I may say 'an old one too,' but I have not yet forgot the time when I enjoyed The bloom of young desire, and purple light of love."" My "hour was now come." No apology would be taken, and to vindicate, therefore, the sincerity of the declaration I had just made, I repeated, as well as my memory would allow, some lines I had written before I was nineteen, and which I had dignified with the name of Mutual Love. "O! 'tis a joy all joys above To know that an innocent heart is thine, To press with thy lip the lips you love, And round the dear neck thy arm to twine : The rapturous sigh, and the melting glance, Delights the ear, and enchants the eye; And lost in affection's 'witching trance, The soul is serene as a Summer sky. O! Heav'n itself has no happier hours Than those spent by young lovers in youth's bright day,— "Tis the sunshine of life, ere the darkling show'rs Have hurried that sunshine for ever away. The bosom is pure and the heart is warm, And all around there is golden light; Unknown as yet is the winter storm, Unfelt as yet is the winter blight. Irene! I've watch'd on thy lip the smile, And gain'd new life from thy balmy breath; Whilst on thy dear brow there shone the while Love's simple gift, a rosy wreath; But little needed that brow so fair Lilies or roses to give it grace; Thy sunny ringlets of amber hair Were all it requir'd of loveliness. Surely, Irene, such love as ours Is not like the love that is changed at will; To it we have owed all our happiest hours, To it we will owe all our happiness still. Worlds may perish, and ages may roll, But mutual affection can never be cloy'd ; Ours is the love which takes root in the soul, And only can die when the soul is de- Ours is the love God has doom'd to be As soon as I had ended, the secretary, who had observed Lady Caroline indulge in a secret yawn or two during my recitation, begged to remind her that it was now eleven o'clock. She took the hint with much thankfulness, and the Society was adjourned. Dickson returned with me to the inn, where we finished another bottle of wine, and talked over our evening's amusement. Early next morning I left Edgefield. When I may again visit it, Heaven only knows. H. G. B. MY FIRST SERMON. NEARLY five-and-twenty years have elapsed since I first mounted the pulpit of The occurrences of that day are deeply engraven on my mind. It was a delightful morning in June, and the eighth of the month. The sun shone forth in all its brilliancy and splendour. There was scarcely sufficient breeze to agitate the trees of my father's small garden. The small birds chirped on the bushes, as if rejoicing in the general harmony; and there was a calmness, and stillness, and quiet repose, which is only felt and perceived on a Sabbath morning. All nature, on that morning of rest, seemed to participate in the cessation from labour, and to breathe a purer air. When I first looked abroad from my chamber, my anxious spirit was refreshed by the beauty and quietness of general nature. No one of the lords of creation was to be seen abroad, and the dumb animals lay stretched at their ease in the green fields and sunny braes. The little burn rippled down, and sparkled in the glances of the sun-beam; and the only sounds that were heard were the gurgling of the waters, and the sweet chirpings of the birds, and the hummings of bees. The scene that presented itself to my view was one of no common beauty. It was familiar to my earliest impressions, and the sight of it, on this morning of my first public ministrations, awakened recollections that were deeply seated, and almost overwhelming. It was here that I had spent the early days of innocence and childhood. Every tree and stone were connected with some association of history or of feeling; and the impressions of youth, which are always indelible, came rushing on my mind with irresistible force. I had spent a lively and happy childhood in these sylvan scenes, under the superintendance and tuition of a fond and affectionate father, who still lived to witness the fruits of his fostering care. In the joyousness of youth, I had become the familiar favourite of every cottager around us. I strolled on the hills, fished in the streams, and sought birds' nests in the woods, with the youngest of my own sex; and I courted and danced with the wood |