MY NIECE'S ALBUM.-No. I.

MYTHOLOGY MADE EASY!

DEAR Minny, mine is but a musty old Muse,
And knows nothing graceful or fine,

Such as flows from the soft Seraph quills of Sky blues
In the Gem or the Annual line.

If you wish for a tale of a horse with five legs,
Or a dolphin in boots and cock'd hat,

A Jew boil'd alive, or a doll that laid eggs,
I could hit it off rather more pat.

Or, supposing we try a short touch at the lore
Of the bearded old Romans and Greeks?
Then muster your nerves for the horrors in store,
And imagine that Hercules speaks.

"Sing row-de-dow dow-de-dow, dub-a-dub-dub,
Tol-de-rol lol-de-rol-lol!

Here I come with my club, some dragon to drub,
Tol-de-rol lol-de-rol-lol!

When, a baby in arms, I came first to the scratch,
With the snakes who attack'd me in bed,
The biters were bit, and met more than their match,
For I throttled and pitch'd them out dead.

My voice was like thunder, my fist was like steel,
And the nurses all dreaded my gripe,

If they cribb'd but a grain from my infantine meal,
A peck-loaf and a bushel of tripe.

I have made my teeth meet through an oaken joint-stool

In my pets, as a two-year-old boy;

At four, I was cock of the county free-school,

But learning was never my joy.

So I grew up a youth of a practical taste,

And very soon felt in the mind

To knock down the monsters who laid the land waste,

And the Ogres that gobbled mankind.

The Nemæan lion made havoc and rout,

Eating shepherds and sheep far and wide;

But I gripp'd him, and squeez'd his tough chitterlings out,

And tann'd me a coat of his hide.

The boar, Erymanthian,-'twas precious tough work
To bring him to bay in the wood;

But I stuck piggy-wiggy, and turn'd him to pork,
And his sausages-oh! they were good!

And Cerberus also, the three-headed brute!—
Who was house-dog and pet to Old Nick,—

I unkennell'd and whack'd him, and tamed him to boot,
And taught him to carry my stick.

I twisted the tail of the mad bull of Crete,
Jump'd astride him, and gallop'd him dead;
I trapp'd the famed stag with the gold horns and feet,
And show'd him for sixpence a head.

I clean'd out Augeas's yard, a vile slough
Wherein his best cows had got stuck;

But the hunks never paid me a farthing, I vow,
Pretending I wasted his muck.

I sprain'd both my wrists, and was half stunk to death,
And was cheated at last by my friend,

But I learn'd, what I'll hold with my very last breath,
Dirty work never pays in the end!

I bagg'd the great Rocs upon Stymphalus' coast,
Who could swallow a mammoth for lunch;
Truss'd a couple and tried them by way of a roast,
But I found them too stringy to munch.

The Thracian King, Diomed, also I threw
For a feed to his cannibal stud;

And Geryon the bandit, I settled him too,
Who would laugh as he suck'd up your blood.

My nerve was most tried by the Hydra, a brute
The most singular under the sun;

For, as fast as you cut off its heads, they would shoot
At the rate of a dozen to one.

Iolaus, my tiger,-a staunch little trump,

As I dock'd off each head in the lot,

Made it hiss a new tune while be sear'd the raw stump
With a frying-pan heated red-hot.

The Amazon Queen, (for young girls will be rash,)
Of all men, must needs challenge me :

I whipt off the girdle that held all her cash,
And spank'd her well over my knee.

I hocuss'd the Dragon, so watchful and grim,
Who slept with one eye wide awake;
No use were gold apples to dragons like him,
And what a prime swag they did make!

I now could afford to get settled in life
As a squire, and gainsay it who durst;

So I laid in my cellar, and married a wife,
But I had to fight hard for her first.

This was well, and I ought to have "let well alone,"
But as bigamy then was not reckon'd

A legal offence, in a whim of my own

I married one day wife the second.

Young men, be advised, and don't envy a Turk,-
At least, I'll be shot if I do :

One spouse was no tax, but 'twas wearisome work
With the quarrels and freaks of the two.

At last, set on fire by a phosphorus shirt,
By way of a conjugal jest,

Like a rocket I flew up to Heav'n at one spirt,
And there got a quiet night's rest.

Divorced by the circumstance,-fortune be praised!-
I forgot my sad recent mishap,

And espoused pretty Hebe, the day she was raised
To be barmaid of Father Jove's tap.

Now I hunt after land and sea-monsters no more,
Though from habit I carry Drub-dragon,
And enjoy myself much in the veteran corps,
For Hebe ne'er stints my full flagon.

At any spare time, to avoid getting fat
And keep up my appetite's edge,

I spar against Mars, whom I floor with a pat,
Or give Vulcan a turn with the sledge.

By the way, a right honest good fellow is that,
The comfort and joy of my life,

Each night tête-à-tête we carouse, smoke, and chat,
But Hebe sha'n't visit his wife.

I could tell you much more that befel me before
I was finally laid on the shelf:

But I'm one of few words, and long yarns are a bore,
Especially tales of one's-self.”

Thus spoke a good fellow, the stoutest of men:

If you wish to continue the stave,

Take, Minny, your pen, and consult brother N.
That Grecian experienced and grave.

Whate'er you may light on in Lempriere's page,
You may thus with small trouble condense,
And inscribe your joint work to the rising young age,
As" Mythology made Common Sense."

MUSIC IS SWEET!

BY MRS. CORNWELL BARON WILSON.

MUSIC is sweet, at evening's close,

When pale mists skim the azure sky,
In some lone spot, where to repose
It hymns the Day's soft lullaby!

Music is sweet! when stars shine bright,

Like angel eyes, through heaven's blue screen,When pearly dews weep tears of light,

As Zephyr sighs, the leaves between!

Music is sweet!-when friends throng round,
It adds new charms to Pleasure's spell,-
When kindred links the heart have bound,
And young Hope rings Life's bridal bell!
But, oh! most sweet, when Love's soft tongue
Breathes through its notes the magic word,
Like fabled harp by Houri strung,
By blessed spirits only heard!

Alluding to a Mahomedan superstition.

THE SNUFF-BOX.

A TALE OF WALES.

Of all the inhabitants of our isles,-and there are still many distinct tribes whose Celtic, Gallic, Danish, Saxon, and Norman descent can be traced in a moment, there are none more peculiar in character than the Welsh, or Ancient Britons. You may gull a Cockney, rob a Damnonian, cheat a Yorkshireman, or out-Jew a Scot; but a Welshman is not to be done: a natural and inborn acuteness protects him from the deepest stratagems, and a leek ought certainly to be the symbol of the Goddess of Wisdom.

This is a brief preface to the brief history of a tour of pleasure made by a very accomplished English gentleman into Wales; the interesting mining operations of which country he was desirous to investigate, not only for the promotion of a great scheme in which he was himself engaged, but for the patriotic purpose of rendering them more extensively useful, and disseminating their products of wealth more diffusely over the empire.

Mr. George Hampden was a man who, yet in the early prime of life, for he was little more than thirty,-had seen a great deal of the world. His fund of information was prodigious; yet so simple was he in speech and manners, and so readily did he lend his ear to what others might truly think the insignificance of common-place intelligence, that no one could suspect his depth, or fancy that he was ought above those easy, good-humoured listeners who, destitute of any precise object of their own, are readily seduced into a passing interest in the concerns of the communicative who choose to make everybody that comes near them a confidant in their bosoms' business and secrets. Quiet, unobtrusive, gentlemanly, and withal good-looking, such was the hero of our tale, Mr. George Hampden. He had travelled far, as we have hinted; but so modest was his nature, that he never intruded the circumstances of his journeys upon society. He had ample materials for the publication of a tour; but he never wrote one.

With the views to which we have alluded, he proceeded by the Quicksilver coach to Exeter; and thence, by the branch, to Truro, where he began his explorations of the rich mines, which, since the days when the Carthaginians used to trade with the natives at Market Jew, alias Marazion, were never examined with more philosophical acumen and sagacity. From Falmouth to the Land's-End, and from the Land's-End whither nobody could tell, he descended every shaft, and tried every lode. A dozen of hampers filled with arranged specimens, and a dozen of bags containing the more recent discoveries, vouched for the diligence of his labour, and the extent of his research. He had seen more veins than Mr. Henwood, collected more minerals than Mr. Carne, and examined more mines than Mr. Taylor. He had lead from Llangynog, quartz from Esqyr Mwyry, chlorite from Dolfrwynog, copper from Old Crinnis, silver from Tolcarne, tin from Wheal Vor, fluor from Wheal Gorland, barytes from Lanescol, zinc from Penstruthal, gossan from Gwennap, scovan from St. Austell, capel from Anglesea, iron from Yniscedwin, pyrites from Tresavean, blende from Dolcoath, gold from Glen

Turret, shale from Drwysoed, sulphur from Brynfellin, fluccan from Allipies, killas from Llandidno, elvan from Polgooth, plumbago from Coed-y-Crae; besides cobalt, felspar, talc, calc, serpentine, cyanite, lepidolite, prehnite, laumonite, zeolite, zoidite, wavellite, chrysolite, tremolite, hæmatite, syenite, titanite, chlorite, actynolite, lucullite, augite, anthracite, gypsum, trap, mica, zircon, antimony, alum, calcedony, jasper, schorl, manganese, nickel, and a hundred other ites and spars, all labelled in the most precise and curious manner; so that no one could for a moment doubt his prodigious acquirements in the sciences of mineralogy and geology, as connected with the grand operations of mining. Sedgwick's hammer was but an idle toy compared to his: he could have taught Lyell, Phillips, and Murchison, more than they knew.

Thus laden and accomplished, Mr. Hampden at length reached Swansea, where he took up his quarters for a season, to observe the nature of the valuable ores which are stamped and sold there, from every quarter of the globe,—from Chili and from Norway, Copiapo and Treloweth, West Cork and Cobre, Ballymurtagh and Cuba, Carn Brea and Valparaiso. With his usual modesty he took genteel and moderate lodgings, and by no means pressed himself upon public notice. He watclifully attended the mart, to be sure; and, like any other common stranger, pretty constantly frequented the newsroom. Here, by degrees, he grew into a slight and partial acquaintance with that class of the inhabitants whose habits led them to a similar mode of passing the time; and, in a few weeks, conversation produced invitation, and he was asked to dine with several of the respectable citizens of the place. Simple in his manners, well-informed and unostentatious, he rose into general favour; and, as familiarity increased, he gradually let out a portion of his private history and present views. One day after dinner, at Mr. Dobbes', he first exhibited the snuff-box which gives a title to our tale, and upon which hinged an event very important to his future destiny. It was indeed a splendid article, shaped like a chest ; it was of the finest gold, and so richly chased that the eye would have delighted in tracing the fanciful arabesques which, as it were, flowed over the shining metal, had it not been prevented by the dazzling enrichment of precious stones which nearly covered the ample surface. On the lid, a very bank of large diamonds was surmounted by a regal crown, where sapphires, amethysts, emeralds, and rubies, of almost inestimable size and value, alternated round the coronet; whilst the centre-top displayed a chrysolite hardly to be matched among the royal jewels of Europe. The touch, by the pressure of which the box opened, was a turquoise of nearly equal rarity; and below it, as if forming part of a lock, was a pearl of price. From this, all about the edge ran a wavy circlet of gems; and the bottom was embellished in a similar manner, only that the broad wreath of diamonds round the brilliant initial letters, "G. H." were let in, and embedded more deeply in the golden matrix. To say that no one in Swansea had ever seen such a box, is to say nothing; we question that Rundell and Bridge ever set eyes on its fellow, or that the Queen of England could have such a treasure made for her from all the jewels belonging to her bright inheritance: that which the Pasha of Egypt gave to Sir David Baird, and which Lady Baird presented to Theodore Hook for his excellent biography of her