With this we may well contrast— ONE-AND-TWENTY: A SATIRE, BY DR. JOHNSON. Loosen'd from the minor's tether, Call the Betseys, Kates, and Jennies, All that prey on vice and folly Wealth, my lad, was made to wander, Call the jockey, call the pander, Bid them come and take their fill. When the bonny blade carouses, Should the guardian, friend, or mother This lively satirical effusion was recited with great spirit by Dr. Johnson on his death-bed, when he said that he had composed it some years before, on the occasion of a rich, extravagant young gentleman coming of age. He had never repeated it but once before, and had never given but one copy of it. That copy was sent to Mrs. Thrale on the 8th of August, 1780, enclosed in a letter in which Dr. Johnson writes:— "You have heard in the papers how Sir John Lade is come to age. I have enclosed a short song of congratulation, which you must not show to anybody. I hope you will read it with candour. It is, I believe, one of the author's first essays in that way of writing, and a beginner is always to be treated with tenderness." Another of Dr. Johnson's birthday effusions was a Greek epigram, sent to Cave, of the Gentleman's Magazine. It was written in honour of the twentyfirst birthday of the learned and pious Miss Carter, for whom Dr. Johnson had a profound and steady friendship extending over fifty years. He told Cave that she ought to be celebrated in as many languages as Louis le Grand. A very different style of poem Age," is that by Mrs. Hemans: "On Coming of TO MY ELDEST BROTHER, LIEUTENANT IN THE ROYAL WELSH FUSILIERS, ON HIS While Hope, the syren fair and gay, Yet, while on fancy's raptured sight For thee, she sings, shall fancy bloom, The crowning glory and joy of Early Life is LOVE. Oh, sweet is Love! O vision bright, Lovers' serenades were formerly very popular in England early on birthday mornings. This is by Thomas Heywood, 1607 :— GOOD-MORROW. Pack, clouds, away, and welcome day, Wake from thy nest, robin redbreast, Give my fair love good-morrow! One of the royalist poets of the reign of Charles the First, William Cartwright, of whom Ben Jonson said, "My son Cartwright writes all like a man," and for whose early death King Charles the First mourned-wrote the following thoughtful stanzas, intended to prove that there can be no real disparity of age where true love exists-the birthday of love being the true measure of the age of lovers. There are two births; the one when light The other when two souls unite; And we must count our life from thence. When you loved me, and I loved you, Then both of us were born anew. Love, then, to us did new souls give, The breath we breathe is His, not ours; Love makes those young whom age doth chill, Whom he finds young, he keeps young still. Love, like that angel that shall call None too much, none too little have; Pope has left us a perfect model of an elegant birthday poem to a young lady. A very original and striking reflection on birthdays is comprised within the first ten lines. To the subject of this poem Pope left in his will " one thousand pounds immediately on my decease; and all the furniture of my grotto, urns in my garden, household goods, chattels, plate, or whatever is not otherwise disposed of in this my will, I give and devise to the said Mrs. Martha Blount, out of a sincere regard and long friendship for her." TO MARTHA BLOUNT, ON HER BIRTHDAY. Oh be thou blest with all that Heaven can send, Long health, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend: Not with those toys the female world admire |