secular priest, and a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. He flourished about the year 1350. "This poem (says Warton) contains a series of distinct visions, which the author imagines himself to have seen while he was sleeping, after a long ramble on Malverne Hills, in Worcestershire. It is a satire on the vices of almost every profession; but particularly on the corruptions of the clergy, and the absurdities of superstition. These are ridiculed with much humour and spirit, couched under a strong vein of allegorical invention."

THE EPIGRAM CLUB.

By one of the Authors of " The Rejected Addresses."

THE members of this intellectual club assemble at the Wrekin, and lately had a numerous muster to dinner.

On the removal of the cloth, the President gave three knocks with his hammer upon a table,

whose dented surface bore evident tokens of many former attacks of the same sort. Silence being procured, he commenced his harangue by reminding the Society, that, there, nobody was required to sing; that it was Gothic barbarity to call upon a gentleman to struggle with

a cold and hoarseness; that the organs of singing were frequently deranged, those of speaking very seldom; and, therefore, that the usages of this Institution were highly rational, inasmuch as no man was there called upon for a song, but every man for an epigram. Then, addressing himself to the member on his right, with the most amusing gravity, he exclaimed, "Mr. Merryweather, may I trouble you for an epigram?" Mr. Merryweather, thus accosted, begged to remind the company, that, on the Bow-street side of Covent Garden Theatre, stood a statue of Comedy, and another of Tragedy. "You are right, Sir," said Culpepper, "and they both look so sober, that it would puzzle Garrick himself to say which was which.”—“ You have hit it, Sir," answered Merryweather; "upon that circumstance hinges my epigram. It is as follows:

"With steady mien, unalter'd eye,

The Muses mount the pile;

Melpomene disdains to cry,

Thalia scorns to smile.

Pierian springs when moderns quaff,

"Tis plainly meant to show,

Their Comedy excites no laugh,

Their Tragedy no woe."

A pretty general knocking of glasses upon the table, denoted that this sally told well; and the Society, as in duty bound, drank Mr. Merryweather's health. "Mr. Morris," said the Deputy Chairman to a member on his right hand, 66 were you at the late Masquerade at the Opera House?”. "I was," answered Morris, with all the elation which is felt by a man who thinks he sees an opening for throwing in a good thing; "I went with Lump, the Leather-seller. He wore a domino, but he wanted to go in character."- -"What character ?"-" Charles the Second."-" Indeed! and what made him alter

his determination?"—" My epigram.”—“ Oh, pray let us have it."—" Certainly:

"To this night's masquerade,' quoth Dick,

'By pleasure I am beckon'd,

And think 'twould be a pleasant trick

To go as Charles the Second.'

Tom felt for repartee a thirst,

And thus to Richard said

'You'd better go as Charles the First,

For that requires no head.""

"Bravo," ejaculated the President.

"Mr.

Vice, you will please to call upon Mr. Snaggs.

We must take him in time, or the Hampstead Stage will be too sharp for us." Snaggs, who for the last five minutes had been fidgetting and looking at his watch, with as much disengaged hilarity as falls to the lot of any married man, who is tied down to stage-coach hours, started from a reverie, and begged to inform the company, that in his village resided a physician and a vicar, who often walked arm in arm together. "Which circumstance," said Snaggs, "induced me to squib at them after the following fashion: "How D. D. swaggers, M. D. rolls!

I dub them both a brace of noddies;
Old D. D. has the Cure of souls,

And M. D. has the Care of bodies.

Between them both, what treatment rare
Our souls and bodies must endure;
One has the Cure without the Care,

And one the Care without the Cure."

The Secretary now read the Report of the Society; after which, Mr. Daffodil, being called upon, gave the following Epigram:

"To Flavia's shrine two suitors run,

And woo the fair at once;

A needy fortune-hunter one,

And one a wealthy dunce.

How, thus twin-courted, she'll behave
Depends upon this rule-

If she's a fool, she'll wed the knave,
And if a knave, the fool."

This effort was received with some applause, but it did not quite amount to a hit. The company seemed to opine that knave and fool were not fit names to call a lady. It mattered little what they thought, young Daffodil had relapsed into his reverie. The following was pronounced considerably better:

My thrifty spouse, her taste to please,
With rival dames at auctions vies;

She doats on every thing she sees,
And every thing she doats on, buys.

I with her taste am quite enchanted,
Such costly wares, so wisely sought;
Bought, because they may be wanted;

Wanted, because they may be bought."

The Chairman's turn arriving, he gave the following:

"Two Harveys had a separate wish

To please in separate stations;

The one invented Sauce for fish,

The other Meditations.