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And watched the shadowy moments run Till my life imbibed more shade than sun; The swing from the bough still sweeps the air; But the stranger's children are swinging there. 4. There bubbles the shady spring below,

With its bulrush brook where the hazels grow;
'Twas there I found the calamus root,

And watched the minnows poise and shoot,
And heard the robin lave his wing;

But the stranger's bucket is at the spring.

5. O! ye who daily cross the sill,

Step lightly, for I love it still;

And when ye crowd the old barn eaves,
Then think what countless harvest sheaves
Have passed within that scented door
To gladden eyes that are no more.

6. Deal kindly with orchard trees:

And when your children crowd your knees,
Their sweetest fruits they shall impart,
As if old memories stirred the heart;
To youthful sports still leave the swing,
And in sweet reverence hold the spring.

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

LXXX. THE SENSITIVE AUTHOR.

DANGLE, SNEER, SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY.

1. Dangle. Ah, my dear friend! We were just speaking of your tragedy. Admirable, Sir Fretful, admirable!

2. Sneer. You never did any thing beyond it, Sir Fretful never in your life.

3. Sir F.

4. Sneer.

Sincerely, then, you do like the piece?
Wonderfully!

5. Sir. F. But come now, there must be something that you think might be mended, hey? Mr. Dangle, has nothing struck you?

6. Dan. Why, faith, it is but an ungracious thing, for the most part, to

7. Sir F. With most authors it is just so, indeed; they are in general strangely tenacious! But, for my part, I am never so well pleased as when a judicious critic points out any defect in me; for what is the purpose of showing a work to a friend, if you don't mean to profit by his opinion?

8. Sneer. Very true. Why, then, though I seriously admire the piece upon the whole, yet there is one small objection; which, if you'll give me leave, I'll mention. 9. Sir F. Sir, you can't oblige me more.

10. Sneer.

11. Sir F.

12. Sneer.

few.

I think it wants incident.

You surprise me ! - wants incident?
Yes; I own I think the incidents are too

13. Sir F. Believe me, Mr. Sneer, there is no person for whose judgment I have a more implicit deference; but I protest to you, Mr. Sneer, I am only apprehensive that the incidents are too crowded. My dear Dangle, how does it strike you?

14. Dan. Really, I can't agree with my friend Sneer. I think the plot quite sufficient, and the first four acts by many degrees the best I ever read or saw in my life. If I might venture to suggest any thing, it is that the interest rather falls off in the fifth.

15. Sir F.

16. Dan.

17. Sir F.

Rises, I believe you mean, sir
No; I don't, upon my word.

Yes, yes, you do, upon my word; it certainly don't fall off, I assure you. No, no, it don't fall off.

18. Dan. Well, Sir Fretful, I wish you may be able to get rid as easily of the newspaper criticisms as you do of ours.

19. Sir F. The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villainous licentious - abominable-contemptible Not that I ever read them! No, I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper.

20. Dan. You are quite right; for it certainly must hurt an author of delicate feelings to see the liberties they take.

21. Sir F. No! quite the contrary; their abuse is, in fact, the best panegyric-I like it of all things. An author's reputation is only in danger from their support. 22. Sneer. Why that's true; and that attack now on you the other day

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24. Dan. Aye, you mean in a paper of Thursday; it was completely ill-natured, to be sure.

25. Sir F. O, so much the better - Ha! ha! ha!-I wouldn't have it otherwise.

26. Dan. Certainly, it's only to be laughed at; for27. Sir F. You don't happen to recollect what the fellow said, do you?

28. Sneer. Pray, Dangle-Sir Fretful seems a little anxious

29. Sir F. O no!-anxious - - not I not the least. I-But one may as well hear, you know.

30. Dan. Sneer, do you recollect? [Aside to SNEER.] Make out something.

31. Sneer. [Aside to DANGLE.] Yes, yes, I remember perfectly.

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I will. [Aloud.]

32. Sir F. Well, and pray now not that it signifies -what might the gentleman say?

33. Sneer. Why, he roundly asserts that you have not the slightest invention or original genius whatever;

though you are the greatest traducer of all other authors

living.

34. Sir F.

Ha! ha! ha! Very good!

35. Sneer. That, as to comedy, you have not one idea of your own, he believes, even in your commonplacebook, where stray jokes and pilfered witticisms are kept with as much method as the ledger of the Lost and Stolen Office.

36. Sir F. Ha! ha! ha! Very pleasant! 37. Sneer. Nay, that you are so unlucky as not to have the skill even to steal with taste; but that you glean from the refuse of obscure volumes, where more judicious plagiarists have been before you; so that the body of your work is a composition of dregs and sediments-like a bad tavern's worst wine.

38. Sir F. Ha! ha!

39. Sneer. In your more serious efforts, he says, your bombast would be less intolerable if the thoughts were ever suited to the expression; but the homeliness of the sentiment stares through the fantastic incumbrance of its fine language, like a clown in one of the new uniforms!

40. Sir F. Ha! Ha!

41. Sneer. That your occasional tropes and flowers suit the general coarseness of your style, as tambour sprigs would a ground of linsey-woolsey; while your imitations of Shakespeare resemble the mimicry of Falstaff's page, and are about as near the standard of the original.

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43. Sneer. In short, that even the finest passages you steal are of no service to you; for the poverty of your own language prevents their assimilating; so that they lie on the surface like lumps of marl on a barren moor, incumbering what it is not in their power to fertilize!

44. Sir F. [After great agitation.] Now, another person would be vexed at this.

45. Sneer. O! but I wouldn't have told you, only to

divert you.

46. Sir F. I know it-I am diverted! Ha! ha!

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ha! not the least invention! Ha! ha! ha!- very good! very good!

47. Sneer. Yes-no genius! Ha! ha! ha!

48. Dan. A severe rogue! Ha! ha! But you are quite right, Sir Fretful, never to read such nonsense. You are quite right.

49. Sir F. To be sure; for if there is any thing to one's praise, it is a foolish vanity to be gratified at it; and if it is abuse, why, one is always sure to hear of it from one good-natured friend or another.

R. B. SHERIDAN.

LXXXI.-SORROW FOR THE DEAD.

1. Sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal, every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open, this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude.

2. Where is the mother that would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon. the remains of her he most loved, and he feels his heart as it were crushed in the closing of its portal, would accept consolation that was to be bought by forgetfulness?

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