n
melodies, when, in tones worthy of Arden, thou didst chant that song
sung by Amiens to the banished Duke, which proclaims the winter wind
more lenient than for a man to be ungrateful. Thy sire was old surly
M----, the unapproachable church-warden of Bishopsgate. He knew not
what he did, when he begat thee, like spring, gentle offspring of
blustering winter:--only unfortunate in thy ending, which should have
been mild, conciliatory, swan-like.--

Much remains to sing. Many fantastic shapes rise up, but they must
be mine in private:--already I have fooled the reader to the top of
his bent;--else could I omit that strange creature Woollett, who
existed in trying the question, and _bought litigations_?--and still
stranger, inimitable, solemn Hepworth, from whose gravity Newton might
have deduced the law of gravitation. How profoundly would he nib a
pen--with what deliberation would he wet a wafer!--

But it is time to close--night's wheels are rattling fast over me--it
is proper to have done with this solemn mockery.

Reader, what if I have been playing with thee all this
while--peradventure the very _names_, which I have summoned up before
thee, are fantastic--insubstantial--like Henry Pimpernel, and old John
Naps of Greece:--

Be satisfied that something answering to them has had a being. Their
importance is from the past.

[Footnote 1: I passed by the walls of Balclutha, and they were
desolate.--Ossian.]

OXFORD IN THE VACATION

Casting a preparatory glance at the bottom of this article--as the
wary connoisseur in prints, with cursory eye (which, while it reads,
seems as though it read not,) never fails to consult the _quis
sculpsit_ in the corner, before he pronounces some rare piece to be a
Vivares, or a Woollet--methinks I hear you exclaim, Reader, _Who is
Elia?_

Because in my last I tried to divert thee with some half-forgotten
humours of some old clerks defunct, in an old house of business, long
since gone to decay, doubtless you have already set me down in your
mind as one of the self-same college--a votary of the desk--a notched
and cropt scrivener--one that sucks his sustenance, as certain sick
people are said to do, through a quill.

Well, I do agnize something of the sort. I confess that it is my
humour, my fancy--in the forepart of the day, when the mind of your
man of letters requires some relaxation--(and none better than such
as at first sight seems most abhorrent from his beloved st