Let the brow oppressed with sorrow,
Let the trouble-stricken breast,
Think not on the coming morrow,

Dream not of its own unrest.

Never thought of earth should cumber
Spirits on a night so fair,
Let the soul's ambition slumber,
And the whisper of despair.

Come, ye mourners, ye that languish

With deep sickness of the heart,

Gaze ye-as ye gaze, the anguish

Which consumes you will depart.

JULIAN.

HOW I CAUGHT A BOILED LOBSTER.

I LIKE sea fishing. I grant it does not require the dexterity of the trout angler, nor his intimate acquaintance with the habits and idiosyncrasies of the finny tribe; but it involves a glorious sail or a stiff pull to the fishing ground, and supplies one with all the excitement requisite for flavouring and promoting pleasure.

Then there are such queer old monsters in the depths of the πολυφλόισβοιο θαλάσσης, so many real wonders besides the mythical sea serpent of American notoriety, and so many mishaps may occur to give piquancy to the fishing party, that the excitement is liable to vary from the most breathless anxiety about the fate of a mackerel you have hooked, to the most pallid concern about the fate of the breakfast you took before embarking. I never caught the sea serpent which was seen by some American captain scratching its back against a buoy in mid-ocean, but I have caught congers which the monster would not have disowned for his cousins had he met them in the Channel. One especially (how he did tug!)—a white conger-lives in my memory, for we lived on him at home for some five or six days. He hooked himself with a will; none of your shabby nibbling, but a bold, honest bite, and then a mighty pull. We played at fast-and-loose for

some five minutes-he running away with my line and I working him up again, till at last I got his head out of water over the side of the boat; but there he stopped, looking hard at me and barking like a dog; his tail wagged playfully at the opposite side of the boat-had he been a trifle longer he could have tied his head and tail in a knot over our heads and defied all our powers to pull him in. As he could not, however, make both ends meet, we gaffed him into the boat and silenced him with a rap on the back.

Fishing with a net is amusing enough; as the net is hauled in the excitement increases with the approach of the arc of cork floats, and it reaches boiling point when the fish in the contracted space convert the water into a seething, eddying mass. But there is not enough work for the hands; it is a tame, prosy affair when compared with the skilful playing of a whiting or a red mullet. The latter was my last capture in the briny deep. Such a beautiful red old fellow. I had never seen one before, and screamed out to the boatman- "I have caught a lobster !"—"A lobster, sir ?" said the jovial tar, with a good-natured, sarcastic grin on his weather-beaten face. "Aye, a lobster, and a boiled one too," -stupid that I was. "Didn't I know that lobsters are blue before

they are boiled ?" Yes! I felt sick at heart after this snubbing given to my ignorance, and almost sick below the regions of the heart. A boiled lobster will henceforth be with me a term of reproach, and my evil constellation, should this sketch be rejected, will be-not the Cancer, but the boiled Lobster.

PISCATOR.

A BALLAD.

puer Automedon nam lora tenebat."-Juvenal.

The stars above were shining bright,

The sea below was still,

Though softly rippling on the sand,
As if ruled by an Almighty hand

And by an Almighty will.

A lofty fortress rear'd above
Its walls so high and strong ;
And on its battlements there pac'd
A lonely knight, in mail encas'd,
With spear and falchion.

Whilst thus the knight on that tall tower

His lonely watch did keep,

His thoughts were wand'ring far away,

To where within her chamber lay
A maiden fast asleep.

And though on noble bed she slept,
Where scarce the hand of care

Could reach, her slumbers were not still,
Her mind seem'd troubled by some ill,
And heav'd her bosom fair.

Her father was a Baron proud,
Of haughty mien and dread;
He would not that his daughter dear,
His Laura, the fairest of the fair,

A nameless knight should wed.
So Laura, of her lover dear

Dream'd in her troubled sleep; Despair, howe'er, his heart did chill As he, throughout the night so still, His lonesome watch did keep.

*

A year passed on; again that knight
Guarded the tower's walls,

But now the sky is overcast,

And hoarsely roars the tempest's blast,
The rain in torrents falls;

The thunder rolls, the lightning, fork'd,
Brightens the black'ning heaven,
And moans the sea with sullen roar,
Dash'd by the storm against the shore,
Upon the sharp crags riven.

FOUR O'clock a.m.-Cheers and scraps of holiday songs echoing through the buildings arouse me from my slumbers, which have been disturbed by visions of omnibus horses, suppers, and home. I spring up and dress like a shot, hallooing all the while, although there is lots of time to spare before we start, for of course you know we are going home to-day. (Voices outside in the passage) "We won't go home till mo-r-ning," Hurrah! "Where's the key of my hat-box?" 66 I say, got your peashooter ?" "Rather, only slightly." "Come, landlord, fill the flowing"-"Look out, don't get shooting peas here." "O hang the peas-you make haste, or you'll be late." Bosh! whoever heard of a boy being late for going home. I never did but once, and then, poor fellow, you must make allowance for him, for he had a wooden leg. At last we all collect in the Hall for the last time and try to stuff down something, but its no go, it sticks fast in our throat; so we rush out and bag places on the box, for it is a swell thing to get a place there, and I have known it to have been bagged months before. Off we drive amid Hurrahs, good byes, and screams from the little boy inside who has been turned into a cushion for one of the big fellows to sit upon, for it is rather a squash. And now going through the town any one might trace us by the peas, marbles, and even old jam-pots which have been treasured up weeks before on purpose to serve out some citizen of Sherborne who may have incurred our displeasure by some act of his during the half-year. beggar, or we shall be late." a'rnt a-gooing to lame my 'osses Governor, don't be surly, or we'll pitch you off the box." Yeovil! that's the style and now follows a nice scene of confusion, as you can imagine; twenty or thirty fellows all bawling at the same time quite different things; one calls "Porter!" "Sir!". "These two for London." "Yes, sir!" "Three for Glouces" "Here, you beggar, these for Weymouth," &c., until

"Cut a-head, you lazy old (Surly old buffer,) “All right, I by galloping down 'ill." "Now,