, the genuineness of the label can be ascertained by its
having "ALLSOPP & SONS" written across it.

* * * * *

{391}

_LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 1854._

Notes.

CURIOUS OLD PAMPHLET.

Grubbing among old pamphlets, the following has turned up:

"A Fragment of an Essay towards the most ancient Histories of the Old
and New Worlds, connected. Intended to be carried on in four Parts or
Aeras. That is, from the Creation of all Things to the Time of the
Deluge: thence to the Birth of Abraham: from that Period to the Descent
of Jacob and his Family into Egypt: and, lastly, to the Time of the
Birth of Moses. Attempted to be executed in Blank Verse, 8vo. pp. 59.
Printed in the year 1765."

This Miltonic rhapsody supposes Adam, when verging on his nine hundreth
year, to have assembled his descendants to a kind of jubilee, when
sacrifices, and other antediluvian solemnities, being observed, "Seth, the
pious son of his comfort, gravely arose, and, after due obedience to the
first of men, humbly beseeched the favour to have their memories refreshed
by a short history of the marvellous things in the beginning." Then Adam
thus:--Hereupon the anonymous author puts into the mouth of the great
progenitor of the human race a history of the Creation, in blank verse, in
accordance with the Mosaic and orthodox account. Concluding his revelations
without reference to the Fall, Seth would interrogate their aged sire upon
what followed thence, when Adam excuses himself from the painful recital by
predicting the special advent in after times of a mind equal to that task:

"But of this Fall, this heart-felt, deep-felt lapse,
This Paradise thus lost, no mortal man
Shall sing which lives on earth.
Far distant hence
In farther distant times, fair Liberty
Shall reign, queen of the Seas, and lady of
The Isles; nay, sovereign of the world's repose.
And Peace!
In her a mighty genius shall
Arise, of high ethereal mould, great in
Renown, sublime, superior far to praise
Of sublunary man--or Fame herself.
Though blind to all things here on earth below,
The heav'ns of heav'ns themselves shall he explore,
And soar on high with strong, with outstretched wings!
There sing of marvels not to be conceived,
Express'd, or thought by any but himself!"

This curious production is avowedly from the other side of the Tweed, a