t must be so said, unhandsome
critic, stilted to satiety in false heroics: stay--not false; judge me,
my heart. Suppose then an imaginary parent thus to speak about his

INFANT DAUGHTERS.

Oh ye, my beauteous nest of snow-white doves,
What wealth could price for me your guileless loves?
My earthly cherubim, my precious pearls,
My pretty flock of loving little girls,
My stores of happiness with least alloy,
My treasuries of hope and trembling joy!
Yon toothless darling, nestled soft and warm
On a young yearning mother's cradling arm;
The soft angelic smiles of natural grace
Tinting with love that other little face;
And the sweet budding of this sinless mind
In winning ways, that round my heart-strings wind,
Dear winning ways--dear nameless winning ways,
That send me joyous to my God in praise.

Enough! not heartlessly, but to shame the heartlessness of YOUR
_ennui_, let me veil those holiest affections; yes, even at the risk of
leaving nominatives widowed of their faithful verbs, will I, until
required, epicise no more. Let these mauled bits be intimations of what
a little care might have made a little better. Gladly will I keep all
the remainder in a state quiescent, even to doubling Horace's wholesome
prescription of nine years: for it is impossible but that your fervent
poet, in the heat of inspiration, (credit me, lack-wits, there is such a
thing,) should blurt out many an unpalatable bit of advice, rebuke, or
virtuous indignation against homes in general, for the which sundry
conscience-stricken particulars might uncharitably arraign him. But
divers other notions are crowding into the retina of my mind's-eye: I
must leave my epic as you see it, and bid farewell, a long farewell, to
'_Home_.' Still shall my egotism have to appear for many weary pages a
most impartial and universal friend to the world of bibliopolists; I
cater multifariously for all varieties of the literary profession:
booksellers at least must own me as their friend, though the lucky purse
of Fortunatus saves me from being impaled upon the point of poor
Goldsmith's epigram, and I leave to [----] the questionable praise of
being their hack. For Bentley and Hatchard, alike with Rivington and
Frazer, for Colburn and Nisbet, as well as Knight, Tilt, Tyas, Moxon,
and Murray, I seem to be gratuitously pouring out in equal measure my
versatile meditations; at this sign all customers may be suited; only,
shop-lifters wil