As

fet an example-But on looking over This papers one day, I chanced to alight on the following fong, or whatever you please to call it, for I am not bound to find names for every thing that appears in rhyme. it was in his own hand-writing I have not the least doubt but it was his own compofition, and, perhaps, the only thing of the kind ever he attempted; for I used to hear him fay with a smile, "I am content to trace the fnowy fields of verfe; and yet I think if I had imagination I fhould make an excellent poet; but I have heard it faid, that imagination is the loftiest plume in the wing of poetry -the plume that adorns and fupports the Mufe's flight.”

I fent my fair a Valentine,

To fhew my skill; but mark the art,
Each fold unveil'd a fofter line,
The last one melted in a heart.

This heart a golden dart did pierce,
Wing'd with the feather of a dove;
And in the midst appear'd this verse,
"I bleed alone for her I love.

"And

And if fhe deigns to drop a tear “On me, I shall not bleed in vain ; "And as I'm artless and fincere, "Sure Mary will not give me pain."

"I never faw a bleeding heart

"On which I would not drop a tear; "But men have now-a-days fuch art, "That maidens fhould have equal fear.”:

This was the answer that fhe fent,

I blefs'd the moment that it came ;
Love bade her tender breaft confent,
And now we burn with mutual flame.

Then, whether Cupid or the nine
Firft gave the hint of Valentine,
That day fhall ever facred be

To love and fmiling liberty.

LETTER VII.

MY DEAR FRIEND.

DO not you think my father was pretty right, when he compared my imagination to a flock of ftarlings? a little flattering too;-for Andrew Marvel compares Milton's to the bird of Paradife? Well, what fhall I light on now?-Helpless infancy! when I began to know my mother with a fmile, or when I ran on all-fours like one of Locke's fimiles, or rather when I first mounted my hobby, I fcarce recollect one paffage in that careless ftage that could be interefting to the reader: what would it avail to know the number of times I shod the cat with walnuts? the number of running fwitches which I kept? how often Ï kiffed the baby in the glafs? how proud of my new-fhoes at a breakingup, and how fond of my paper kite,

which I have preferved to this day,
because it was compofed of my fifter's
copy-book. I recollect I was very
well pleased with the first book that
was put into my hand, it was fuited
to my tafte;-of this you will not
doubt, when I tell you it was a ginger-
bread one; perhaps it will be fufficient
to say that when I was a child, I acted
as a child, and now that I am a man
I do not know that I have put away
childish things; I am loath to part with
my toys, and no wonder, perhaps in-
fancy and youth are the only feasons
of life we can look back on with plea-
fure:-

The tear forgot as foon as fhed,
The funshine of the breaft.

On this fubject I intended to have
faid very little, but as I have extended
it to this length, I fhall conclude it
with an observation, which I met with
in turning over a trunk-full of old pa-
pers laft week..
"There

E 4

1

"There is always a fingle example, by which each man finds himself more convinced than by all others put to gether:-I feem for my own part to fee the benevolence of the Deity more clearly in the pleafures of very young children than in any thing in the world. The pleafures of grown per+ fons may be reckoned partly of their own procuring, efpecially if there has been any induftry, or contrivance, or purfuit to come at them; or if they are founded, like mufic, painting, &c. upon any qualification of their own acquiring; but the pleafures of a healthy infant are fo manifeftly pro vided for it by another, and the benevolence of the provifion is fo unqueftionable, that every child I fee at its fport affords to my mind a kind of fenfible evidence of the finger of God, and of the difpofition which directs it".

LETTER