BOTHERBY.

I thank you. Not any more, Sir, till I dine.

INKEL.

Apropos !-Do you dine with Sir Humphrey to day?

TRACY.

I should think with Duke Humphrey was more in your way.

INKEL.

It might be of yore; but we authors now look

To the knight, as a landlord, much more than the Duke.
The truth is each writer now quite at his ease is,

And (except with his publisher) dines where he pleases.
But 'tis now nearly five, and I must to the Park.

TRACY.

And I'll take a turn with you there till 'tis dark.
And you, Scamp-

LADY BLUEBOTTLE.

Well, now we break up;

But remember Miss Diddle invites us to sup.

INKEL.

Then at two hours past midnight we all meet again,
For the sciences, sandwiches, hock and champaigne !

TRACY.

And the sweet lobster sallad !

BOTHERBY.

I honour that meal;

For 'tis then that our feelings most genuinely-feel.

INKEL.

True; feeling is truest then, far beyond question;
I wish to the gods 'twas the same with digestion !

LADY BLUEBOTTLE.

Pshaw !-never mind that; for one moment of feeling
Is worth-God knows what.

INKEL.

"Tis at least worth concealing

For itself, or what follows-But here comes your carriage. SIR RICHARD (aside).

I wish all these people were d-d with my marriage!

End of Eclogue the Second.

[Exeunt.

MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS.

My father was a Dissenting Minister at W-m in Shropshire; and in the year 1798 (the figures that compose that date are to me like the "dreaded name of Demogorgon") Mr. Coleridge came to Shrewsbury, to succeed Mr. Rowe in the spiritual charge of a Unitarian Congregation there. He did not come till late on the Saturday afternoon before he was to preach; and Mr. Rowe, who himself went down to the coach in a state of anxiety and expectation, to look for the arrival of his successor, could find no one at all answering the description but a round-faced man in a short black coat (like a shooting-jacket) which hardly seemed to have been made for him, but who seemed to be talking at a great rate to his fellow-passengers. Mr. Rowe had scarce returned to give an account of his disappointment, when the round-faced man in black entered, and dissipated all doubts on the subject, by beginning to talk. He did not cease while he staid; nor has he since, that I know of. He held the good town of Shrewsbury in delightful suspense for three weeks that he remained there," fluttering the proud Salopians like an eagle in a dove-cote;" and the Welch mountains that skirt the horizon with their tempestuous confusion, agree to have heard no such mystic sounds since the days of

"High-born Hoel's harp or soft Llewellyn's lay!"

As we passed along between W-m and Shrewsbury, and I eyed their blue tops seen through the wintry branches, or

the red rustling leaves of the sturdy oak-trees by the roadside, a sound was in my ears as of a Siren's song; I was stunned, startled with it, as from deep sleep; but I had no notion then that I should ever be able to express my admiration to others in motley imagery or quaint allusion, till the light of his genius shone into my soul, like the sun's rays glittering in the puddles of the road. I was at that time dumb, inarticulate, helpless, like a worm by the way-side, crushed, bleeding, lifeless; but now, bursting from the deadly bands that "bound them,

"With Styx nine times round them,"

my ideas float on winged words, and as they expand their plumes, catch the golden light of other years. My soul has indeed remained in its original bondage, dark, obscure, with longings infinite and unsatisfied; my heart, shut up in the prison-house of this rude clay, has never found, nor will it ever find, a heart to speak to; but that my understanding also did not remain dumb and brutish, or at length found a language to express itself, I owe to Coleridge. But this is not to my purpose.

My father lived ten miles from Shrewsbury, and was in the habit of exchanging visits with Mr Rowe, and with Mr. Jenkins of Whitchurch (nine miles farther on) according to the custom of Dissenting Ministers in each other's neighbourhood. A line of communication is thus established, by which the flame of civil and religious liberty is kept alive, and nourishes its smouldering fire unquenchable, like the fires in the Agamemnon of Eschylus, placed at different stations, that waited for ten long years to announce with their blazing pyramids the destruction of Troy. Coleridge had agreed to come over to see my father, according to the courtesy of the