to reflect upon the lapse of time, how speedily his spring, summer, and autumn would pass away, and the winter of his days come upon him; like Wolsey he was not aware how soon the frost, the killing frost would nip his root: he was however a gay convivial fellow, loved his bottle and his friend, passed his time peaceably amongst us, and certainly merits the good word of every loyal subject in this kingdom.

As for his proceedings in other countries, it is not here the reader must look for an account of them; politics have no place in these volumes; but it cannot be denied that he has made many widows and orphans in Europe, been an active agent for the court of death, and dipped his hands deep in Christian and Mahometan blood. By the friends of freedom he will be celebrated to the latest time. He has begun a business, which if followed up by his successor with equal zeal, less ferocity and more discretion, may lead to wonderful revolutions: there are indeed some instances of cruelty, which bear hard upon his character; if separately viewed, they admit of no palliation; in a general light allowances may be made for that phrensy, which seizes the mind, when impelled to great and arduous undertakings; when the wound is gangrened the incision must be deep, and if that is to be done by coarse instruments and unskilful hands, who can wonder if the gash more resembles the stab of an assassin than the operation of a surgeon? An æra is now open, awful, interesting and so involved in mystery, that the acutest speculation cannot penetrate to the issue of it in short, my friend in his last moments hath put a vast machine in motion, and left a task to futurity, that will demand the strongest hands and ablest heads to compleat: in the mean time I shall hope that my countrymen, who have all those blessings by inheritance, which less-favoured nations are now

struggling to obtain by force, will so use their liberty, that the rest of the world, who are not so happy, may think it an object worth contending for, and quote our peace and our prosperity as the best proofs existing of its real value.

Whilst my thoughts have been thus employed in reflecting upon the last day of an ever-memorable year, I have composed a few elegiac lines to be thrown into the grave, which time is now opening to receive his reliques.

The year's gay verdure, all its charms are gone,
And now comes old December chill and drear,
Dragging a darkling length of evening on,

Whilst all things droop, as Nature's death were near.

Time flies amain with broad-expanded wings,
Whence never yet a single feather fell,

But holds his speed, and through the welkin rings
Of all that breathe the inexorable knell.

Oh! for a moment stop-a moment's space
For recollection mercy might concede,
A little pause for man's unthinking race
To ponder on that world, to which they speed.
But 'tis in vain; old Time disdains to rest,
And morent after moment flits along,
Each with a sting to pierce the idler's breast,
And vindicate its predecessor's wrong.

Though the new-dawning year in its advance
With hope's gay promise may entrap the mind,
Let memory give one retrospective glance
Through the bright period, which it leaves behind.

Æa of mercies! my wrapt bosom springs
To meet the transport recollection gives :
Heaven's angel comes with healing on his wings;
He shakes his plumes, my country's father lives.

The joyful tidings o'er the distant round
Of Britain's empire the four winds proclaim,
Her sun-burnt islands swell the exulting sound,
And farthest Ganges echoes George's name.

Period of bliss! can any British muse
Bid thee farewell without a parting tear?
Shall the historian's gratitude refuse
His brightest page to this recorded year?

Thou Freedom's nursing mother shall be stil'd,
The glories of its birth are all thine own,
Upon thy breasts hung the Herculean child,
And tyrants trembled at its baby frown.

A sanguine mantle the dread infant wore,
Before it roll'd a stream of human blood;
Smiling it stood, and, pointing to the shore,
Beckon'd the nations from across the flood.

Then at that awful sight, as with a spell,
The everlasting doors of Death gave way,
Prone to the dust Oppression's fortress fell,
And rescu'd captives hail'd the light of day.

Meanwhile Ambition chac'd its fairy prize
With moonstruck madness down the Danube's stream,
The Turkish crescent glittering in its eyes,
And lost an empire to pursue a dream.

The trampled serpent (Superstition) wreath'd
Her fest'ring scales with anguish to and fro,
Torpid she lay, then darting forward sheath'd
Her deadly fangs in the unguarded foe.

Oh Austria ! why so prompt to venture forth,
When fate now hurries thee to life's last goal?
Thee too, thou crowned eagle of the north,
Death's dart arrests, though tow'ring to the pole.
Down then, Ambition; drop into the grave !
And by thy follies be this maxim shewn-
'Tis not the monarch's glory to enslave
His neighbour's empire, but to bless his own.

Come then, sweet Peace! in Britain fix thy reign,
Bid Plenty smile, and Commerce croud her coastj
And may this ever blessed year remain
Her king's, her people's, and her muse's boast,

NUMBER LXXXVIII.

NICOLAS PEDROSA, a busy little being, who followed the trades of shaver, surgeon and man-midwife in the town of Madrid, mounted his mule at the door of his shop in the Plazuela de los Affligidos, and pushed through the gate of San Bernardino, being called to a patient in the neighbouring village of Foncarral, upon a pressing occasion. Every body knows that the ladies in Spain in certain cases do not give long warning to practitioners of a certain description, and no body knew it better than Nicolas, who was resolved not to lose an inch of his way, nor of his mule's best speed by the way, if cudgelling could beat it out of her. It was plain to Nicolas's conviction as plain could be, that his road laid strait forward to the little convent in front; the mule was of opinion, that the turning on the left down the hill towards the Prado was the road of all roads most familiar and agreeable to herself, and accordingly began to dispute the point of topography with Nicolas by fixing her fore feet resolutely in the ground, dipping her head at the same time between them, and launching heels and crupper furiously into the air in the way of argument. Little Pedrosa, who was armed at heel with one massy silver spur of stout, though antient, workmanship, resolutely applied the rusty rowel to the shoulder of his beast, driving it with all the good-will in the world to the very butt, and at the same time adroitly tucking his blue cloth capa under his right arm, and flinging the skirt over the left shoulder en cavalier,

began to lay about him with a stout ashen sapling upon the ears, pole and cheeks of the recreant mule. The fire now flashed from a pair of Andalusian eyes, as black as charcoal and not less inflammable, and taking the segara from his mouth, with which he had vainly hoped to have regaled his nostrils in a sharp winter's evening by the way, raised such a thundering troop of angels, saints and martyrs, from St. Michael downwards, not forgetting his own namesake Saint Nicolas de Tolentino by the way, that if curses could have made the mule to go, the dispute would have been soon ended, but not a saint could make her stir any other ways than upwards and downwards at a stand. A small troop of mendicant friars were at this moment conducting the host to a dying man.- Nicolas Pedrosa,' says an old friar, be patient with your beast and spare your blasphemies; remember Balaam.'-'Ah father,' replied Pedrosa, Balaam cudgelled his beast till she spoke, so will I mine till she roars.'- Fie, fie, prophane fellow,' cries another of the fraternity.

Go about your work, friend,' quoth Nicolas, ' and let me go about mine; I warrant it is the more pressing of the two; your patient is going out of the world, mine is coming into it.' Hear him,' cries a third, hear the vile wretch, how he blasphemes the body of God.'-And then the troop past slowly on to the tinkling of the bell.

6

A man must know nothing of a mule's ears who does not know what a passion they have for the tinkling of bell, and no sooner had the jingling cords vibrated in the sympathetic organs of Pedrosa's beast, than boulting forward with a sudden spring she ran roaring into the throng of friars, trampling on some and shouldering others at a most prophane rate; when Nicolas availing himself of the impetus, and perhaps not able to controul it, broke away and