"Ah! knew'st thou how we find it sweet

"Beneath the waves to go,

Thyself would leave the hook's deceit,

"And live with us below.

"Love not their splendour in the main
"The sun and moon to lave?
"Look not their beams as bright again,

"Reflected on the wave?

Tempts not this river's glassy blue,

"So crystal, clear and bright?

Tempts not thy shade, which bathes in dew,

"And shares our cool delight?"

The water rush'd, the water swell'd,
The fisherman sat nigh;

With wishful glance the flood beheld,
And long'd the wave to try.

To him she said, to him she sung,
The river's guileful queen :
Half in he fell, half in he sprung,

And never more was seen.

No. XV.

THE SAILOR'S TALE.

ORIGINAL.- -M. G. LEWIS.

LANDLORD, another bowl of punch, and comrades fill your

glasses!

First in another bumper toast our pretty absent lasses,

Then hear how sad and strange a sight my chance it was to see,

While lately, in the Lovely Nan,' returning from Goree !

As all alone at dead of night along the deck I wander'd,
And now I whistled, now on home and Polly Parsons ponder'd,
Sudden a ghastly form appear'd, in dripping trowsers rigg'd,

"A monstrous fish has safely stow'd your comrade in his

belly;

с

66

Groggy last night, my luck was such, that overboard I slid, "When a shark snapp'd and chew'd me, just as now you

chew

that quid.

"Old Nick, who seem'd confounded glad to catch my

napping,

soul a

"Straight tax'd me with that buxom dame, the tailor's wife at

Wapping;

"In vain I begg'd, and swore, and jaw'd; Nick no excuse

66

would hear;

Quoth he,— You lubber, make your will, and damʼme, downwards steer.'

Tom, to the 'foresaid tailor's wife I leave my worldly riches, "But keep yourself, my faithful friend, my bran-new linen breeches;

"Then, when you wear them, sometimes give one thought to Jack that's dead,

"Nor leave those galligaskins off while there remains one

thread."

At hearing Jack's sad tale, my heart, you well may

bleeding;

think, was

The spirit well perceived my grief, and seem'd to be proceeding, But here, it so fell out, he sneezed:-Says I-" God bless you, Jack!"

And poor Jack Tackle's grimly ghost was vanish'd in a crack!

Now comrades, timely warning take, and landlord fill the bowl;

Jack Tackle, for the tailor's wife, has damn'd his precious soul; Old Nick's a devilish dab, it seems, at snapping up a sailor's, So if you kiss your neighbour's wife, be sure she's not a tailor's.

G&

No. XVI.

THE PRINCESS AND THE SLAVE.

ORIGINAL.

-M. G. LEWIS.

WHERE fragrant breezes sigh'd through orange bowers, And springing fountains cool'd the air with showers, From retired, and noon-tide's burning ray,

pomp

The fair, the royal Nouronihar lay.

The

cups of roses, newly-cropp'd, were spread
Her lovely limbs beneath, and o'er her head
Imprison'd nightingales attuned their throats,
And lull'd the princess with melodious notes.
Here roll'd a lucid stream its gentle wave

With scarce heard murmur; while a Georgian slave
Placed near the couch with feathers in her hand,
The lady's panting breast in silence fann'd,
And chased the insects, who presumed to seek
Their banquet on the beauty's glowing cheek.
This slave, a mild and simple maid was she,
Of common form, and born of low degree,