And bring the looks to me;

To exchange the discourse of two fond hearts?

I would refuse the feasts of the Curate,

I would reject the dress of his daughter,
Rather than resign the dear object:

He whom I have tried to enslave in the summer,
And to subdue in the winter!"

DEATH OF ALFIERI.

WHEN Alfieri was near his end, he was persuaded to see a priest. When the priest came, he said to him with an uncommon affability, "Have the kindness to look in to-morrow; I trust that Death will wait for four-and-twenty hours." The sacred monitor again appeared next day. Upon his entrance, Alfieri was sitting in his arm-chair, and said, " At present I fancy I have but few minutes to spare." He begged that the Countess of Albany, widow of Charles Edward Stuart, the Pretender, and who was, as the inscription on his tomb records, "his only love," might be brought in; and at the instant he saw her, he exclaimed, "Clasp my hand, my dear friend, I die."

"PARADISE LOST."

THIS poem, when ready for the press, was nearly being suppressed through the ignorance or malice of the Licenser, who saw or fancied treason in the following nòble simile:

"As when the sun new risen

Looks through the horizontal misty air

Shorn of his beams: or from behind the moon,

In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs.”

This obstacle overcome, Milton sold the copyright for five pounds, ready-money; to be paid the same sum when one thousand three hundred of the books should have been disposed of, and five more pounds when a second and third edition were published. By this agreement, Milton received but fifteen pounds; and afterwards, his widow gave up every claim for eight pounds.

VOLTAIRE AND SHAKSPEARE.

AN Englishman once complained to Voltaire, that few foreigners relished the beauties of

Shakspeare. "Sir," replied he, "bad translations torment and vex them, and prevent their understanding your great Dramatist.-A blind man, Sir, cannot conceive the beauty of a rose, who only pricks his fingers with the thorns.”

JOHN KEATS.

THIS, imaginative being died at Rome, Feb. 23rd, 1821, whither. he had gone for the benefit of his health. His complaint was a consumption, under which he had languished for some time; but his death was accelerated by a cold, caught in his voyage to Italy. It is rather singular, that, in the year 1816, he expressed an ardent desire to visit these classic regions, and, five years after, his wish was gratified.

The Sonnet, in which he expresses a hope that he may at some period visit the shores of Italy, is one of his earliest productions, and is too beautiful to be omitted in this humble tribute to his memory.

Happy in England! I could be content

To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown

Through its tall woods with high romances blent;

1

Yet, do I sometimes feel a languishment

For skies Italian, and an inward groan

To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,

And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me,

Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging;
Yet do I often warmly burn to see

· Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing, And float with them about the summer waters."

Keats was, in the truest sense of the word, a Poet. There is but a small portion of the public acquainted with the writings of this young man ; yet they are full of elevated thoughts and delicate fancy, and his images are beautiful and more entirely his own, perhaps, than those of any living writer whatever. He had a fine ear, a tender heart, and, at times, great force and originality of expression; and notwithstanding all this, he has been suffered to rise and pass away, almost without a notice. The laurel has been awarded (for the present) to other brows; bolder aspirants have been allowed to take their station on the slippery steps of the Temple of Fame, while he has been hidden among the crowd during his life, and died at last, solitary and sorrowful, in a foreign land.

TURLOUGH CAROLAN.

THIS minstrel bard, sweet as impressive, will long claim remembrance, and float down the stream of time, whilst poesy and harmony have power to charm. He was born in the year 1670, in the village of Nodder, in the county of Westmeath, on the lands of Carolan's town, which were wrested from his ancestors by the family of the Nugents, on their arrival in this kingdom, with King Henry II. His father was a poor farmer, the humble proprietor of a few acres, which afforded him a scanty subsistence. Of his mother little is known ;-probably the daughter of a neighbouring peasant, in the choice of whom, his father was guided rather by nature than by prudence.

It was in his infancy that Carolan was deprived of his sight by the small-pox. This deprivation he supported with cheerfulness, and would merrily say, "my eyes are transplanted into my ears." His musical genius was soon discovered, and procured him many friends, who determined to aid its cultivation, and at the age of twelve, a master was engaged to instruct him on the harp; but his diligence in the regular modes of instruction was not great, yet