There first for thee my passion grew,
Sweet, sweet Matilda Pottingen!
Thou wast the daughter of my tu-
tor, law-professor at the U-

niversity of Gottingen,
niversity of Gottingen.

Sun, moon, and thou, vain world, adieu,
That kings and priests are plotting in;
Here doomed to starve on water gru-
el, never shall I see the U-

niversity of Gottingen,
niversity of Gottingen.

[During the last stanza he dashes his head repeatedly against the walls of his prison, and finally so hard as to produce a visible contusion. He then throws himself on the floor in an agony. The curtain drops, the music still continuing to play till it is wholly fallen.] GEORGE CANNING.

Clam-Soup.

FIRST catch your clams: along the ebbing edges
Of saline coves you'll find the precious wedges
With backs up lurking in the sandy bottom;
Pull in your iron rake, and lo! you've got 'em.
Take thirty large ones, put a basin under,
And deftly cleave their stony jaws asunder.
Add water (three quarts) to the native liquor,
Bring to a boil (and, by the way, the quicker
It boils the better, if you'd do it cutely),
Now add the clams, chopped up and minced mi-
nutely,

Allow a longer boil of just three minutes,
And while it bubbles, quickly stir within its
Tumultuous depths, where still the mollusks mutter,
Four tablespoons of flour and four of butter,
A pint of milk, some pepper to your notion,
And clams need salting, although born of ocean.
Remove from fire (if much boiled it will suffer-
You'll find that India-rubber is n't tougher);
After 'tis off add three fresh eggs, well beaten,
Stir once more, and it's ready to be eaten.
Fruit of the wave! Oh, dainty and delicious!
Food for the gods! Ambrosia for Apicius!

Worthy to thrill the soul of sea-born Venus,
Or titillate the palate of Silenus!

WILLIAM ANDREWS CROFFUT.

A Receipt for Salad.

To make this condiment your poet begs

The pounded yellow of two hard-boiled eggs;
Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give;
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, half suspected, animate the whole;
Of mordent mustard add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault
To add a double quantity of salt;

Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca crown,
And twice with vinegar, procured from town;
And lastly o'er the flavored compound toss
A magic soupçon of anchovy sauce.
Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat!
"Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad-bowl;
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
"Fate cannot harm me,-I have dined to-day."
SYDNEY SMITH.

The Essence of Opera;

OR, ALMANZOR AND IMOGEN.

An Opera, in Three Acts.

Вотн.

463

At length then we unite!

People, sing, dance, and show us your delight! CHORUS. Let's sing, and dance, and show 'em our delight.

Hypochondriacus.

By myself walking,
To myself talking
When as I ruminate
On my untoward fate,
Scarcely seem I

Alone sufficiently,

Black thoughts continually
Crowding my privacy.
They come unbidden,
Like foes at a wedding,
Thrusting their faces
In better guests' places,
Peevish and malcontent,
Clownish, impertinent,
Dashing the merriment:
So, in like fashions,
Dim cogitations

MAY the Babylonish curse

Straight confound my stammering verse,

If I can a passage see

In this word-perplexity,

Or a fit expression find,

Or a language to my mind

(Still the phrase is wide or scant),

To take leave of thee, great plant!
Or in any terms relate

Half my love, or half my hate;
For I hate, yet love, thee so,
That, whichever thing I shew,
The plain truth will seem to be
A constrained hyperbole,
And the passion to proceed
More for a mistress than a weed.

Sooty retainer to the vine! Bacchus' black servant, negro fine!

Sorcerer! that mak'st us dote upon

Thy begrimed complexion,
And, for thy pernicious sake,
More and greater oaths to break
Than reclaimed lovers take

'Gainst women! Thou thy siege dost lay

Much, too, in the female way,
While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath
Faster than kisses, or than death.

Thou in such a cloud dost bind us

That our worst foes cannot find us,

And ill fortune, that would thwart us,

Shoots at rovers, shooting at us;

While each man, through thy height'ning

steam,

Does like a smoking Etna seem;

And all about us does express

(Fancy and wit in richest dress)

A Sicilian fruitfulness.

Thou through such a mist dost show us That our best friends do not know us, And, for those allowed features

Due to reasonable creatures,
Liken'st us to fell chimeras,

Monsters that who see us, fear us;
Worse than Cerberus or Geryon,
Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion.

Bacchus we know, and we allow His tipsy rites. But what art thou, That but by reflex can'st shew What his deity can doAs the false Egyptian spell Aped the true Hebrew miracle? Some few vapors thou may'st raise, The weak brain may serve to amaze; But to the reins and nobler heart Can'st nor life nor heat impart.

Brother of Bacchus, later born! The old world was sure forlorn, Wanting thee, that aidest more The god's victories than, before, All his panthers, and the brawls Of his piping Bacchanals. These, as stale, we disallow,

Or judge of thee meant: only thou

His true Indian conquest art; And, for ivy round his dart, The reformed god now weaves A finer thyrsus of thy leaves.

Scent to match thy rich perfume Chemic art did ne'er presume Through her quaint alembic strain, None so sovereign to the brain. Nature, that did in thee excel, Framed again no second smell. Roses, violets, but toys For the smaller sort of boys, Or for greener damsels meant ; Thou art the only manly scent.

Stinkingest of the stinking kind! Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind! Africa, that brags her foyson, Breeds no such prodigious poison! Henbane, nightshade, both together, Hemlock, aconite

Nay, rather,

Plant divine, of rarest virtue!
Blisters on the tongue would hurt you!
'Twas but in a sort I blamed thee;
None e'er prospered who defamed thee;
Irony all, and feigned abuse,
Such as perplext lovers use
At a need, when, in despair
To paint forth their fairest fair,
Or in part but to express
That exceeding comeliness
Which their fancies doth so strike,
They borrow language of dislike;
And, instead of dearest Miss,
Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss,
And those forms of old admiring,
Call her cockatrice and siren,
Basilisk, and all that's evil,
Witch, hyena, mermaid, devil,
Ethiop, wench, and blackamoor,
Monkey, ape, and twenty more—
Friendly trait'ress, loving foe-
Not that she is truly so,

But no other way they know,
A contentment to express

Borders so upon excess

That they do not rightly wot Whether it be from pain or not.

Or, as men, constrained to part With what's nearest to their heart, While their sorrow 's at the height Lose discrimination quite, And their hasty wrath let fall, To appease their frantic gall, On the darling thing, whatever, Whence they feel it death to sever, Though it be, as they, perforce, Guiltless of the sad divorce.

465

For I must (nor let it grieve thee, Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee. For thy sake, tobacco, I

Would do anything but die,

And but seek to extend my days

Long enough to sing thy praise.

But, as she who once hath been
A king's consort, is a queen
Ever after, nor will hate
Any title of her state
Though a widow, or divorced-
So I, from thy converse forced,
The old name and style retain,
A right Catherine of Spain;
And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys
Of the blest tobacco boys;
Where though I, by sour physician,
Am debarred the full fruition

Of thy favors, I may catch

Some collateral sweets, and snatch
Sidelong odors, that give life
Like glances from a neighbor's wife;
And still live in the by-places
And the suburbs of thy graces;
And in thy borders take delight,
An unconquered Canaanite.

CHARLES LAMB.

Faithless Nelly Gray.

BEN BATTLE was a soldier bold,
And used to war's alarms;
But a cannon-ball took off his legs,
So he laid down his arms.