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Not Radclyffe's brush did e'er design

Black Forests, half so black as mine,
Or lakes so like a pall;

The Chinese cake dispers'd a ray

Of darkness, like the light of Day
And Martin over all.

Yet urchin pride sustain'd me still,
I gaz'd on all with right good will,
And spread the dingy tint;

"No holy Luke help'd me to paint,
The Devil surely, not a Saint,
Had any finger in't!"

But colours came !-like morning light, With gorgeous hues displacing night,

Or Spring's enliven'd scene:

At once the sable shades withdrew;
My skies got very, very blue;

My trees extremely green.

And wash'd by my cosmetic brush,

How Beauty's cheek began to blush;

With lock of auburn stain

(Not Goldsmith's Auburn)-nut-brown hair,

That made her loveliest of the fair;

Not "loveliest of the plain!"

Her lips were of vermilion hue;

Love in her eyes, and Prussian blue,
Set all my heart in flame !

A young Pygmalion, I ador'd

The maids I made-but time was stor'd
With evil-and it came!

Perspective dawn'd-and soon I saw

My houses stand against its law;

And "keeping" all unkept!

My beauties were no longer things
For love and fond imaginings;

But horrors to be wept!

Ah! why did knowledge ope my eyes?
Why did I get more artist-wise?

It only serves to hint,

What grave defects and wants are mine;

That I'm no Hilton in design

In nature no Dewint!

Thrice happy time !-Art's early days!

When o'er each deed with sweet self-praise,

Narcissus-like I hung!

When great Rembrandt but little seem'd,

And such Old Masters all were deem'd

As nothing to the young!

A FAIRY TALE.

ON Hounslow heath-and close beside the road,
As western travellers may oft have seen,—
A little house some years ago there stood,
A minikin abode;

And built like Mr. Birkbeck's, all of wood;

The walls of white, the window-shutters green ;

Four wheels it had at North, South, East, and West, (Tho' now at rest)

On which it used to wander to and fro,

Because its master ne'er maintain'd a rider,

Like those who trade in Paternoster Row;

But made his business travel for itself,

Till he had made his pelf,

And then retired-if one may call it so,
Of a roadsider.

Perchance, the very race and constant riot

Of stages, long and short, which thereby ran,
Made him more relish the repose and quiet

Of his now sedentary caravan;

Perchance, he lov'd the ground because 'twas common, And so he might impale a strip of soil,

That furnish'd, by his toil,

Some dusty greens, for him and his old woman;—
And five tall hollyhocks, in dingy flower,
Howbeit, the thoroughfare did no ways spoil
His peace,-unless, in some unlucky hour,
A stray horse came and gobbled up his bow'r!

But, tir'd of always looking at the coaches,

The same to come,-when they had seen them one day! And, used to brisker life, both man and wife

Began to suffer NUE's approaches,

And feel retirement like a long wet Sunday,

So, having had some quarters of school-breeding,
They turn'd themselves, like other folks, to reading;

But setting out where others nigh have done,
And being ripen'd in the seventh stage,

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