Away went Gilpin, and away
Went Gilpin's hat and wig:
He lost them sooner than at first;
For why? They were too big.

Now Mistress Gilpin, when she saw
Her husband posting down

Into the country far away,

She pulled out half a crown;

And thus unto the youth she said That drove them to the Bell, "This shall be yours when you bring back

My husband safe and well."

The youth did ride, and soon did meet
John coming back amain,
Whom in a trice he tried to stop,
By catching at his rein:

But not performing what he meant,
And gladly would have done,
The frighted steed he frighted more,
And made him faster run.

Away went Gilpin, and away
Went post-boy at his heels,
The post-boy's horse right glad to
miss

The lumbering of the wheels.

Six gentlemen upon the road
Thus seeing Gilpin fly.
With post-boy scampering in the

rear,

They raised the hue and cry:

"Stop thief! stop thief! - a highwayman!"

Not one of them was mute;

And all and each that passed that way

Did join in the pursuit.

And now the turnpike-gates again
Flew open in short space:
The tollmen thinking as before
That Gilpin rode a race.

And so he did; and won it too;

For he got first to town;

own:

presumes - it

He did again get down.

may be so.

law

To swear to some enormity he saw, For want of prominence and just relief,

Would hang an honest man and save a thief.

Through constant dread of giving truth offence,

He ties up all his hearers in suspense; Knows what he knows as if he knew it not;

What he remembers seems to have forgot;

His sole opinion, whatsoe'er befall, Centring at last in having none at all.

[From Conversation.]

FAITHFUL PICTURE of ordi

NARY SOCIETY.

THE circle formed, we sit in silent state,

"Yes, ma'am," and

Like figures drawn upon a dial-plate;
No, ma'am,"
uttered softly, show
Every five minutes how the minutes

go;

Each individual, suffering a con

straint

Poetry may, but colors cannot, paint,

As if in close committee on the sky, Reports it hot or cold, or wet or dry,

And finds a changing clime a happy

source

Of wise reflection and well-timed discourse.

We next inquire, but softly and by stealth,

Like

conservators of the public health,

Of epidemic throats, if such there are Of coughs and rheums, and phthisic and catarrh.

If birds confabulate or no;
'Tis clear that they were always able
To hold discourse, at least in fable;
And even the child who knows no
better

Than to interpret by the letter,
A story of a cock and bull
Must have a most uncommon skull.

It chanced then on a winter's day, But warm and bright and calm as May,

The birds, conceiving a design

not how,

Attested, glad, his approbation
Of an immediate conjugation.
Their sentiments so well expressed
Influenced mightily the rest;
All paired, and each pair built a nest.
But though the birds were thus in
haste,

The leaves came on not quite so fast,
And destiny, that sometimes bears
An aspect stern on man's affairs,
Not altogether smiled on theirs.
The wind, of late, breathed gently
forth,

Now shifted east, and east by north;
Bare trees and shrubs but ill, you
know,
[snow:

Could shelter them from rain or