[From Nightmare Abbey, chap. xi. :-" Mr. Hilary: Now I say again, a catch.' The Reverend

Mr. Larynx: I am for you.' Mr. Hilary: Seamen three." The Reverend Mr. Larynx:

6

Agreed. I'll be Harry Gill, with the voice of three. Begin.'"]

[From Crotchet Castle, chap. xviii. :-"Lady Clarinda being prevailed on to take the harp in her turn, sang [these] stanzas."]

LOVE AND AGE.

PLAYED with you 'mid cowslips blowing,
When I was six and you were four;

When garlands weaving, flower-balls throwing,
Were pleasures soon to please no more.

Through groves and meads, o'er grass and heather,
With little playmates, to and fro,

We wandered hand in hand together

But that was sixty years ago.

You grew a lovely roseate maiden,

And still our early love was strong;

Still with no care our days were laden,

They glided joyously along;

And I did love you very dearly,

How dearly words want power to show;

I thought your heart was touched as nearly-
But that was fifty years ago.

Then other lovers came around you,
Your beauty grew from year to year,
And many a splendid circle found you
The centre of its glittering sphere.

I saw you then, first vows forsaking,
On rank and wealth your hand bestow;
Oh, then I thought my heart was breaking-
But that was forty years ago.

And I lived on, to wed another :

No cause she gave me to repine;

And when I heard you were a mother,

I did not wish the children mine.

My own young flock, in fair progression,
Made up a pleasant Christmas row;
My joy in them was past expression-
But that was thirty years ago.

You grew a matron plump and comely,
You dwelt in fashion's brightest blaze;
My earthly lot was far more homely;
But I, too, had my festal days.
No merrier eyes have ever glistened
Around the hearthstone's wintry glow

Than when my youngest child was christened--
But that was twenty years ago.

Time passed. My eldest girl was married,
And I am now a grandsire gray;
One pet of four years old I've carried
Among the wild-flowered meads to play.
In our old fields of childish pleasure
Where now, as then, the cowslips blow,
She fills her basket's ample measure-
And that is not ten years ago.

But though first love's impassioned blindness
Has passed away in colder light,

I still have thought of you with kindness,
And shall do, till our last good-night.

The ever-rolling silent hours.

Will bring a time we shall not know,

When our young days of gathering flowers
Will be an hundred years ago.

THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK.

[From Gryll Grange, chap. xv., where it is sung by "a young lady" and called a "ballad." Miss Ilex thus comments on it :-"That is a melancholy song. But of how many loves is it the true tale? And how many are far less happy?"]

[From Handy Andy, chap. vii. :-"Fanny opened the book, and read; they were lines of Edward O'Connor's, which she drank into her heart; they were the last he had written, which her brother had heard him sing, and had brought her."]