Bits of books, from old and modern authors, for railway travellers

Hostile Critics
Disputation.
Society Compared to a Bowl of Punch
The Phænix
Party Zeal
Avarice
Beating of Wives
Growing Virtuous in Old Age
Bobadil's Plan for Saving the Expense of an Army
How to be Reputed a Wise Man
Sectarian Differences
Censorious People .
Lying

POETRY.

A Description of Morning

Song of Love

The Woodman's Walk .

An Epigram

The Vicissitudes of Life

The Gold King

On Woman's Inconstancy

Fear of Death

To Althea, from Prison

A Thanksgiving for His House

Go, Lovely Rose.-- A Song

The Drum

Mercy

The Pauper's Death-bed

A Parental Ode to my Son, aged Three Years and

Five Months

The Pilgrims and the Peas

62

66

Bits of Books

SELECTED

FROM OLD AND MODERN AUTHORS.

A DESCRIPTION OF THE MORNING.

Now hardly here and there a hackney-coach
Appearing showed the ruddy morn's approach.
The slipshod 'prentice from his master's door
Had pared the dirt, and sprinkled round the floor.
Now Moll had whirled her mop with dexterous airs,
Prepared to scrub the entry and the stairs.
The youth with broomy stumps began to trace
The kennel's edge, where wheels had worn the place.
The small-coal man was heard with cadence deep,
Till drown'd in shriller notes of chimney-sweep:
Duns at his lordship's gate began to meet;
And brick-dust Moll had screamed through half the

street.
The turnkey now his flock returning sees,
Duly let out a-nights to steal for fees;
The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands,
And schoolboys lag with satchels in their hands.

Swift.

B

THE HERMIT OF BELLYFULLE.

“ Are you a hermit ?” we asked, with a wondering look.

“ Have I not said it ? The Hermit of Bellyfulle, and this is my Hermitage ; this the Cell of the Corkscrew,” cried the anchorite; and he then turned to the pan, his eye melting on the frying eggs.

The Hermit appeared between fifty and sixtynearer sixty. He would have looked tall, but for his breadth of shoulder and bow of belly. His arms were short, thick, and sinewy; with a fist that might have throttled a wild boar or a keen attorney. Altogether he was a massive lump of a man, hard and active. His face was big and round, with a rich, larder look about it. His wide, red cheeks were here and there jewelled with good living. As gems are said by some to be no more than a congelation of the rarest essences attracted and distilled from mother earth, so were the living rubies burning in the cheeks of the Hermit, the hardened, incarnated juices of the deer of the forest—the volatile spirits of the vine, The Hermit had no nose ; none, ladies, none.

There was a little nob of flesh, like a small mushroom, dipt in wine, which made its unobtrusive way between the good man's cheeks, and through which he has been known to sneeze : but impudence itself could not call that piece of flesh a nose.

The Hermit's mouth had all the capacity of large benevolence; large and wide, like an old pocket. There seemed a heavy unctuousness about the lower lip; a weight and drooping from very mellowness-like a ripe peach, cracking in the sun. His teeth—but that he had lost one, as we afterwards learned, in active