His poem called 'Variety' is light and pleasant,
and deserves a niche in our 'Specimens.'
VARIETY.
A TALE FOR MARRIED PEOPLE.
A gentle maid, of rural breeding,
By Nature first, and then by reading,
Was filled with all those soft sensations
Which we restrain in near relations,
Lest future husbands should be jealous,
And think their wives too fond of fellows.
The morning sun beheld her rove
A nymph, or goddess of the grove!
At eve she paced the dewy lawn,
And called each clown she saw, a faun!
Then, scudding homeward, locked her door,
And turned some copious volume o'er.
For much she read; and chiefly those
Great authors, who in verse, or prose,
Or something betwixt both, unwind
The secret springs which move the mind.
These much she read; and thought she knew
The human heart's minutest clue;
Yet shrewd observers still declare,
(To show how shrewd observers are,)
Though plays, which breathed heroic flame,
And novels, in profusion, came,
Imported fresh-and-fresh from France,
She only read the heart's romance.
The world, no doubt, was well enough
To smooth the manners of the rough;
Might please the giddy and the vain,
Those tinselled slaves of folly's train:
But, for her part, the truest taste
She found was in retirement placed,
Where, as in verse it sweetly flows,
'On every thorn instruction grows.
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