neither sneeze nor cough when I have a mind, nor do other things, which I may do being alone and at liberty. So that, good sir, as to these honours your worship is pleased to confer upon me, as a menial servant, and hanger-on of knight-errantry, being squire to your worship, be pleased to convert them into something of more use and profit to me; for, though I place them to account, as received in full, I renounce them from this time forward to the end of the world.""

The humour and pathos of Sterne are too well known and too highly appreciated to require the aid of criticism to enforce his merit.

SONNET-NATURE.

THE breezy cliff, the softly-swelling hill,

The quiet valley, and the cheerful plain,
The calm romantic lake, the rolling main,

Are now my haunts! Their varied graces fill
My soul with pleasant dreams, and soothe and still
The passions' strife, and fever of the brain.-
Oh! how resistless thy mysterious reign,
Benignant Nature! O'er the sense of ill

Thy smiles have holy power! When the proud glow
Of wild ambition fades, and the world's brow
Grows stern and dark, thy lone but fair domain
Is Sorrow's sweetest home. There cold disdain
Ne'er wakes the tear of unregarded woe,
Nor sickening envy dreads a rival's gain.

THE LADY TO HER BIRD*.

1.

GAY minstrel-bird! Those prison bars
Ne'er check thy song, nor chill thy breast;

Thy bliss no sad remembrance mars,

No wildering visions haunt thy rest.
The past's soft hue, the future's veil,
With vain regrets and idle fears
Ne'er make thy merriest music fail,
Nor dim thine eye with tears.

II.

Alas! a darker doom is mine,

A dower 'tis well thou dost not share :

For human hearts alone repine

At pleasures past or coming care;

And if perchance a moment's pain

Thy little panting breast may thrill,
Thou dost not feed the transient bane

With some fantastic ill.

III.

Sweet bird! The gift of one who gave

A dearer boon,-his own true heart,

I fain a sadder song would crave

If thou couldst mimic sorrow's part;

These verses were written to illustrate an engraving in the Bengal Annual.

But as the rose with bright tints dyed

To summer's rule alone belongs,

So thou to kindred fate allied

Can'st breathe but summer songs.

IV.

Yet oh! when he who charmed this breast
Is far away-what sound is sweet?
And earth in wintry gloom is drest
When I no more his smile may meet.

On thee, his living gift, I gaze—

My hand his golden token bears— While he o'er unknown regions strays,

And unknown danger dares.

V.

In vain I seize the lute he loved,

In vain his favorite airs would try, The songs that once but softly moved

My heart, now wake too wild a sigh; And lighter strains but mock the mind Intently turned on happier hours ;The sad no charm in mirth can find, And kindred grief o'erpowers.

TO A LADY ON HER BIRTH-DAY.

I WILL not hail thy natal day

With custom's cold unmeaning words;
The hopes and fears that haunt thy way
My fond heart silently records.

I will not wish its glad return,
With lifted bowl and hacknied phrase;
Thy breast for better meed would yearn
Than idle forms and fulsome praise.

Thou knowest that in my secret soul
Thine hallowed image, aye must dwell;
And faithful passion's strong controul
In vain the feeble tongue would tell.

If then amidst the formal crowd

I fail to breathe the formal prayer,
A fervid love more deep than loud
Thine heart will not disdain to share.

When thou no more deceit canst brook, And fain the lines of truth wouldst trace,

Dear Lady! watch thy lover's look,

And read the language of his face!

MINIATURE OUTLINES.

NO. I.-SIR WALTER SCOTT.

BULWER maintains, that Scott is greater as a poet than as a novelist. There cannot he many converts to this very singular creed. Scott was without all question the greatest Romance writer of his time, but he was far behind many of his contemporaries in poetical genius. The sun of Byron had scarcely risen above the horizon before the lesser light of Scott grew dim in the eyes of all men. The noble poet greatly surpassed him even in the vulgar art of obtaining a certain kind of popularity amongst unpoetical readers by melodramatic tales in metre, which are so often greedily devoured by persons who are utterly blind or indifferent to the poetical beauties, by which they may be illustrated or accompanied. Neither Scott nor Byron were remarkable for the higher poetical endowments which are most appreciated by those, who care little for that part of the machinery of a poem which could be transferred without essential injury to a prose fiction; but assuredly the noble bard exhibited a larger share of these qualities in his writings than Sir Walter. If we were to take away from any one of the latter's poems the mere story, it would be bare indeed. A few vivid descriptions would still remain, but even these are little better than mere transcripts-they have more of the accuracy of detail than the glow of imagination. There is a want of thought as well as of imagination in Scott's poetry, and this is the reason that it is so rarely quoted. His diction is prosaic and commonplace. His words never glitter with the dews of Castalie. No poet ever wrote so much and obtained such extensive popularity, with