The stars we together have watched--
What pleasure these thoughts do recall!
Believe that your truly attached,
Dear Eliza, will be at your ball.

Can study those feelings estrange,
Of affection so ardent and true?
Or absence or time ever change
A heart so devoted to you?
My voice may have altered its tone,
My brow may be furrow'd by care,
But, oh, dearest girl, there are none
Possess of my heart the least share.
You say that my hair is neglected,
That my dress don't become me at all;
Can you feel surprised I'm dejected,
Since I parted from you at your ball?

I listlessly turn o'er the pages.
So fraught with amusement before
Tasso, Dante, and even the sages,
Once pleasing, are pleasing no more.
When I walk on the banks of the Mole,
Or recline 'neath our favourite tree,
As the needle is true to the pole,
So my thoughts still concentre in thee.
Old Time moves so slow, he appears,
"With age quite decrepit," to crawl;
And days seem now lengthen'd to years,
Before we shall meet--at your ball.

DAFT JAMIE.

* * * * *

RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS.

* * * * *

(_To the Editor of the Mirror._)

Having occasionally (during my lucubrations) marked out sundry
choice excerpts, quips, and quiddities, from a variety of authors, I
shall, with your permission, submit to the reader an occasional
chapter, with a few original remarks, &c., which I hope will prove
agreeable.

JACOBUS.

POSTURE MASTERS.

It is now a-days extremely common to style the tumble-down-dick exploits or
posture masters, balancers, conjurers, &c. an art. To ridicule such an
abuse of the term by applying it to mere adroitness, skill in trifles, and
labour-in-vain performances, Quinctilian gives us this merry
instance--"Qualis illius fuit, qui grana ciceris ex spatio distante missa,
in acum continue, et sine frustratione inserebat; quem cum spectasset
Alexander, donasse eum dicitur leguminis modio--quod quidem praemium fuit
illo opere dignissimum." Translation--Of this kind of art, was his, who,
standing at a certain distance, could continually, without missing, stick a
small pea upon the point of a needle; which when Alexander had witnessed,
he ordered him a bushel of that grain for his trouble, a reward quite
adequate to such an exploit. We have a similar story related, I