ear melody, without glitter.

But of all the composers of his own day, Shield[6] was his favourite;
and justly. He furnished him with most of his popular songs. The singer
was the peculiar organ of the composer--his "Thorn," his "Mouth which a
Smile," "Tom Moody," "Heaving the Lead," and many, many others, seem to
have faded away with the voice of the melodist.

[6] Let the lover of melody look over the list of works
published, in the obituary of that beautiful composer!

But I find, were I to run through, as I proposed, all the songs
_peculiar_ to my hero, I should, most likely, tire my reader. The
delight with which I dwell upon them is a species of egotism; I will
therefore only name a few more, and "leave him alone with his
glory."--"Sally in our Alley," the song Addison was so fond of; what an
_association!_ "Post Captain," "Brown Jug." In his decline, even "His
father he lost," and "On Lethe's banks," in Artaxerxes;--hear the
singers of the present day sing these songs! "Bay of Biscay," "When
Vulcan forged," the second of "All's Well," "Bet, sweet blossom," "Will
Watch," "Last Whistle," &c. &c. Alas! alas! and all this over! He has
piped his last whistle, and poor Charles "sleeps in peace with the
dead!"

In concluding, I cannot but observe, that no singer has so completely
identifies himself with particular songs. Those in which he most
excelled, he stamped as his own--no one can touch them "while his memory
be green."

When the race who heard him has faded away, some one may attempt them;
but I should as soon think of going to see Mr. Kean play Coriolanus, as
to hear another sing "Black-eyed Susan." My mind is filled--I have
Kemble's noble patrician _perfect_ before me; I have Gay's ballad in
Incledon's notes as fully in "my mind's _ear_," and I would not have
them displaced.

_Blackwood's Magazine._

* * * * *

THE GATHERER.

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.

Shakspeare.

_The following is inscribed on a black Tablet in Sherborne Church,
Dorset:_

This Monument was erected by
Mr. Thomas Mansel, of this Towne,
in remembrance of a great hailstorme,
May 16th, 1709,
between the hours of one and four in
the afternoon;
which stopping the course of a small
river, west of this church, caused of a
sudden an extraordinary flood in the
Abbey Garden and Green,
running with so rapid a stream, that it