wholesome. Can you forbear smiling, my friend? Now I know there is nothing of literature in all this, unless the chemical disquisitions of my wretched husband may be so considered; but nevertheless I flatter myself you will give me a place in your Messenger, because many a victim of dyspepsia may look into this mirror, and see himself.

BELINDA.

PICTURE OF OLD VIRGINIA.

Look here upon this picture-and on this,

The counterfeit presentment.-Hamlet.
Virginia had been beautiful

And owned a lovely land;
Her sons, who were so dutiful,

Went with her heart and hand;
They raised her to the highest seat,

By talents and by worth,
And sent her name in accents sweet,

Far ringing through the earth.
But lately she had fallen off ;

Her beauty was impaired;
Her younger sons were heard to scoff-

They might at least have spared.
'Twas said that she was growing blind,

Was lazy and supine,
And that she weakly lagged behind

Her sisters, grown divine.
That all her days were spent, forsooth,

In one eternal chime
About her deeds of early youth —

“Resolves" of former time.
Naught could be said and nothing told

But she more devils spied;
“More devils than vast hell could hold” -

Or all the world beside.

And strangers* did her land deride

With wagging tongue, reviled;
Wild beast, they said, had multiplied

In that most barren wild;
Her houses were untenanted-

The foxt had manned her walls;
And "rank grass” waved around his head,

As in old Ossian's halls.
Her moral strength and physical,I

Aye, both of them, were gone,
And every man seem'd phthisical,

Or like to tumble down;
Her talents all were buried deep,

Or in some napkin hid,
Or with the mighty dead, did sleep

Beneath the coffin lid.
But far! oh far beyond all these,

She had displeased her God;
Inter dolosos cineres,

She on volcano trod;
She could not get of nights her rest ;

At midnight bell for fire,
She hugged her infants to her breast,

Prepared for funeral pyre.
Virginia roused herself one day,

And took her picture down;
And as she gazed, was heard to say-

Am I thus hideous grown?

* See Col. Benton's description of Virginia, done into verse, beginning thus:

“As Benton jogg'd along the road,

'Twas in the Old Dominion,
His thoughts were bent-on finding food

For preconceived opinion,” &c. t“The fox peeped out of the window, and the rank grass waved around his head. Desolate is the dwelling of MoinaSilence is in the house of her fathers.” – Ossian.

| Man's strength is gone, his courage-zooks !
And liberty's fine motions, &c.-Benton.

And am I stupid-lazy-blind

A monomaniac too!
Relaxed in body and in mind ?

Oh no! it is not true.
There lies outstretched my glorious land,

With her capacious bay;
My rivers rush on every hand,

With sail and pennon gay;
My mountains, like a girdle blue,

Adorn her lovely waist,
“And lend enchantment to the view,"

As in "the distance" traced.
I'll hie me straight to Richmond town,

And call my liege men there;
And they shall write these libels down,

Or fill me with despair.
I have a friend, who'll make some stir,

And take my work in hand ;
I'll send him forth my “Messenger”–

To “spy out all the land."*
That Messenger went gaily forth

Throughout her old domain,
And there found many men of worth

Would snatch their pens again ;
And since their mother's blood was up-

To cast her odium by,
Would shed-of ink-their latest drop

T' inscribe her name on high.
The land which he went out to sist

No milk and honey floods-
It takes not two her grapes to liftt-
But
grapes

festoon her woods.

* And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan.

† And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff, ***** and they told him, and said, we came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it.

No want of food, for beast or man,

There met his eager gaze;
Find better bacon !-greens !--who can ?

Or finer fields of maize !*
Her Tuckahoes, 'tis true, are slim.

And of a bilious hue;
But then he found the Anakin

Beyond the mountains blue:
Some men he found in safety chains-

All crossed upon the breast-
They seem'd indeed to have no brains :

But these all lands infest.
The women look'd so passing fair,

How shall their charms be told ?
By their Iachimost they were

'Like brilliants set in gold.
Of such pure water was each maid ;

So sparkling unto view,
No wonder that it should be said

They never could turn blue.
No foxes here, peep'd windows through ;

But oft at early morn
They're seen to brush the glittering dew,

Pursued by hounds and horn :
Her "hounds are of the Spartan breed”–

“So sanded and so flew'd,”
All“dewlap'd” they, and all“crook-kneed” –

As Cadinus e'er halloo'd.

* In old Virginia, stint of food

Diseases have engender'd-
The mind is gone,-to want of

blood
Good morals have surrender'd
Houses are fallen-fences down

And men are now much scarcer
Wild beasts in multitudes are known,

That every day get fiercer.
Flee gravel-grit—and heartless clay-

Nor corn nor oats will grow there-
To westward hie-away-away!

No heartless clay you'll know there.-Benton. + The yellow Iachimo.-Shakspeare. (Cymbeline.)

In short, all zealots are run mad

T'abuse this pleasing sod;
Where people sleep as sound, egad,

As in the land of Nod :
What! colonize old coachman Dick!

My foster brother Nat!
My more than mother, when I'm sick!

“Come, Hal, no more of that."

EXTRACT FROM A POEM,

ENTITLED

OLD VIRGINIA GEORGICS.

“Quid faciat lætas segetes,

*

Hinc canere incipiam.”

Argument. Virginia husbandry and that depicted by Virgil contrastedploughing-horses, and manner of driving-gear-mules-the ox-pastures—harrows, skimmers, &c.--crab grass-shepherds— sheep-rogues-runaways-wolves-hounds-milk--milk-maidsfence rails—watlings-invocation-address to Arators--shallow ploughing-clover—gypsum-cowtail—Sir Humphrey, Davyyear begins-clodhoppers—overseers-hiring day-bonds-distribution of labor-grubbing-effects of leaving stumps-old fences-hogs, &c., &c., &c. I sing the tillage old Virginia knows, Which cheats with hope the husbandman who sows ; Not such as Maro sung in deathless strains, To piping shepherds and Italian swains. With crops immense”* no “barn here ever cracks ;" The wheat comes always badly from the stacks, The corn falls ever “most immensely” short Of vague conjecture or of false report; No well-fed bullocks drag the glittering plough, But half starv'd horses, and the Lord knows how !

* Immensæ ruperunt horrea messes.--Virgil.